April Fools’ year

Three months into 2025, so many things that I would have thought would be improbable have happened and continue to happen.

Pretty much like a snake in the Chinese Zodiac calendar, this year keeps on slithering and sliding, shedding its skin and transforming.

And as we enter the month of April, I also feel that this year will be a year-long April Fool’s Day of seemingly practical jokes that unfortunately have devastating consequences, as both local and global events continue to unfold.

US President Donald Trump made good on what most thought was a joke, something he would not really do, but which he is now doing and is upending the global economy, the result of which we all still have no clue about what will happen, and who the final joke will be on.

Among President Trump’s controversial moves is the removal of American funding, through the USAID or the United States Agency for International Development, which helps fund most of the United Nation’s budget.

The UN, according to the Council on Foreign Relations or CFR, is the world’s principal organization for deliberating  matters of peace and security, but its work encompasses far more than peacekeeping and conflict prevention. The UN system includes scores of entities dedicated to a range of areas, including health and humanitarian needs, and economic and cultural development.

Every member of the UN is required to contribute to the organization’s budget, but the US has been the largest donor for the last 80 years since the UN was founded in 1945, and plays host to the UN headquarters in New York.

The US remains the largest donor to the UN, contributing close to $13 billion in 2023, accounting for more than a quarter of funding for the UN’s collective budget.

With the loss of funding from the US, the UN is turning to other multilateral financing institutions for financial support.

One consequence, according to international bankers, is that other important endeavors, such as renewable energy, may be put on the back burner as the US pushes for increased oil production.

Oil tariffs

At the same time, President Trump is also slapping tariffs on other countries, such as Iran and Venezuela, further roiling the global oil market which is expecting a crude oil production surplus at a time when softer demand  is expected from China and India, according to Reuters.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, the news agency recently reported, has a forecast that global oil demand will increase by 1.45 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2025 and reach a similar level of  1.43 million bpd in 2026.

According to analysts interviewed by Reuters, US President Trump’s tariff plans could derail this trajectory, as the tariffs could trigger an economic slowdown and drive up global inflation.

On the other hand, Trump wants Iran to cut its oil exports to zero, and likewise announced a 25 percent tariff on any country buying oil or gas from Venezuela.

According to the New York Times, Trump also warned that he would impose tariffs on countries that buy oil from Russia if it derails negotiations for a peace deal with Ukraine.

Automobile tariffs

On another front, the US President’s decision to slap tariffs on automobiles from China, Japan and South Korea to help revive the US automobile industry and convince the three nations to bring their production to the US has, instead, been met by a countermove from the three Asian neighbors to improve trade relations.

After Mexico, South Korea is the world’s largest exporter of vehicles to the US, followed by Japan, according to data from S&P. However, following Trump’s tariff threat, South Korea’s Hyundai had announced a $21-billion investment in the US.

South Korea, China and Japan, who also have territorial disputes, held their first economic dialogue in five years, seeking to facilitate regional trade as the three Asian export powers brace against the US tariffs. They have not made substantial progress on a trilateral free-trade deal since starting talks in 2012.

The three countries’ trade ministers agreed to “closely cooperate for a comprehensive and high-level” talks on a South Korea-Japan-China free trade agreement deal to promote “regional and global trade,” according to a statement released after the meeting.

“It is necessary to strengthen the implementation of RCEP (the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership), in which all three countries have participated, and to create a framework for expanding trade cooperation among the three countries through Korea-China-Japan FTA negotiations,” said South Korea Trade Minister Ahn Duk-geun.

RCEP, which went into force in 2022, is a trade framework among 15 Asia-Pacific countries aimed at lowering trade barriers. The Philippines is, fortunately, part of RCEP even though our lawmakers were initially slow to ratify our membership to the multilateral trade organization that will give us access to 15 markets.

The 15 member countries of RCEP are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines, which are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN. The five regional countries with which ASEAN has free trade agreements are Australia, China, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.

The three Asian ministers met ahead of Trump’s announcement of more tariffs.

Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo are major trading partners of the US.

According to analysts, the US tariff play may end up hurting Americans more as other more productive nations band together to soften the blow brought about by the higher tariff rates being imposed by Trump. Even now, the heavily vehicle reliant US market faces a looming increase in car prices, with Trump saying that he does not care if prices go up.