What Donald Trump pitched as an ‘America First’ economic strike is now echoing as a global realignment, with his aggressive tariff war not only rattling traditional allies but also inadvertently boosting platforms like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), whose 25th summit in Tianjin has transformed into a showcase of solidarity, innovation, and defiance against U.S. unilateralism revealing how the very tools meant to secure America’s dominance are instead catalyzing a multipolar order.
When Donald Trump imposed his “Tariff War Wolf Diplomacy”, he may not have anticipated that the biggest collateral damage would be America’s own diplomatic capital. What Washington imagined as an arm-twisting exercise to reset global trade equations has instead catalyzed an unlikely resurgence in China’s backyard. Next week’s 25th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in Tianjin set to host 20 heads of state and 10 international Organization leaders, the highest turnout in its history stands as the clearest testimony yet that the world is searching for alternatives to the American chokehold on commerce and geopolitics.
Trump won’t be present in Tianjin. Yet, paradoxically, his tariffs are the invisible hand guiding its agenda. What was once dismissed as a “Shanghai Contradictory Organization” a loose collective often mocked as a “talking shop” is suddenly recast as a possible counterweight to Western blocs. For the first time in 25 years, the SCO looks less like a relic of post-Soviet border management and more like a mammoth grouping capable of nudging global balance: half the world’s population, a quarter of global GDP, and nearly 100-fold growth in intra-SCO trade since inception. By sheer weight of numbers, Tianjin cannot be ignored.
Beijing, of course, is milking the moment. The SCO, born in 2001 out of the Shanghai-Five, now stretches from Minsk to Mumbai, Tehran to Tashkent. For President Xi Jinping, the Tianjin Summit is a golden stage: a chance to trumpet infrastructure connectivity, green energy, digital economy initiatives, AI, and even a proposed SCO Development Bank, all while painting China as the liberal, globalising antidote to Trump’s isolationist tariffs.
But the irony is thick. The White House push has guaranteed the Middle Kingdom’s pull. China may have drawn up the invitations, but Trump’s trade war delivered the RSVPs. With Beijing facing curbs in the US market, the SCO is being positioned as China’s laboratory to find new buyers, patch over disputes, and recast the Belt and Road Initiative more narrowly around Eurasia. In other words, Washington’s aggression is Beijing’s opportunity.
Of course, the SCO is no seamless machine. It remains riddled with contradictions. The Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) was meant to unite members against extremism, separatism, and narcotics. Instead, it has exposed divisions: China branding Uyghur groups as terrorists, Russia equating dissent with extremism, Pakistan’s double games, and India’s fury over the Pahalgam attack omission in Qingdao earlier this year. New Delhi’s refusal to endorse that statement underscored the messy geopolitics within the bloc.
The Tianjin gathering will thus walk a tightrope. On paper, it may adopt ringing declarations on rule-based multilateralism and denounce unilateralism (without naming the US). In practice, its defence posturing remains blurred by divergent national agendas. As one Indian wag once quipped, the SCO can just as easily be read as the “Shanghai Contradictory Organization.”
For India, the Tianjin Summit is more than another multilateral photo-op. It marks Prime Minister Modi’s first visit to China in seven years, and only his second potential meeting with Xi Jinping since the Galwan clash of 2020 that left 20 Indian soldiers dead. That alone makes this trip geopolitically electric.
The timing, too, is critical. Just this week, Trump doubled tariffs on Indian exports to 50%, deepening trade friction. India, however, has doubled down on “Strategic Autonomy”—buying discounted Russian crude, refusing to bow to Western pressure, and quietly rebalancing with Beijing despite deep mistrust. In Tianjin, Modi will not only meet Xi but also President Putin, reminding the world that India remains central to the Russia-China-India axis, even if New Delhi prefers moderation over posturing.
India’s role in the SCO has always been layered: combat terrorism, expand energy ties in Central Asia, balance Pakistan, and avoid being boxed into a China-led orbit. That makes Modi’s China visit less about symbolism and more about testing whether the slow turning of the Galwan page can produce tangible results on border peace, trade deficits, and regional connectivity.
Would the Tianjin Summit have mattered without Trump? Perhaps not. For years, the SCO has muddled through with lofty rhetoric and modest outcomes. But with Washington’s tariff blitz alienating allies and adversaries alike, Tianjin suddenly looms as the first collective sign of resistance to American unilateralism. Russia and Iran will rail against sanctions, Central Asian states will hedge, and China will attempt to spin optics into influence.
Whether the SCO can truly rival the G7 or remain an unwieldy coalition is an open question. But one fact is undeniable: Trump, in seeking to “make America great again”, has inadvertently made the SCO matter again. In Tianjin, the world will watch not just for communiqués and handshakes, but for the first tremors of a global recalibration.
And if history records that the SCO’s 25th Summit was its coming of age, then the irony will sting in Washington: it was Trump who Shanghaied the world to Tianjin.