Countries will take the USA side for two principal reasons … economics and security.

There is a large number of western European countries that rely on the USA for security protection against Russia (who has been very aggressive in recent years). They will side with the USA. And this will close off $350 Billion in annual Chinese exports!

The EU + USA export cutoff will, by itself, crash the Chinese economy … these Chinese exports are equal to close to 10% of the Chinese economy. And the loss of these exports will cause further contraction across the Chinese economy … local people won’t have the jobs/funds to buy local goods and pay local taxes. This means other countries will be likely to be unsuccessful in selling their goods to China.

On the other side, the USA and EU will have close to a Trillion Dollars to spend annually with countries other than China! A pretty strong economic incentive to take the USA side.

Now you could say that China could entice some people by redirecting the spending that previously went to the USA or the EU. Except for two issues. First, China needs the USA / EU trade surplus to buy energy and other resources to create exports. Without the surplus, the Chinese currency reserves will drain pretty quick. Other countries who try to take the place of the USA & EU in exporting to China will want to get paid in a convertible currency. China won’t have the dollars or euros to pay … only local currency. Not very attractive.

In the USA, prices would NOT noticeably rise. The cost of Chinese goods are seldom more than 30% of a selling price. A 20% cost increase would only result in a few percent increase in selling price. If you look at Chinese exports to the USA and to Europe, virtually none are critical to health, life or any other major way to society. Everything that China exports to the USA or the EU can be sourced somewhere else in the world. China produces NO proprietary goods that any MUST have. I acknowledge that the USA and western countries will have a year or two of economic disruption … but nothing too serious. And lots of economic upside as jobs move back to Europe and the USA. I have decades of manufacturing experience across many industries, scaling up will not be that hard. It’s just engineering and logistics. And where cheap labor is needed, SE Asia will gladly step in. I’d also ask why you see higher tax rates? I’d see higher tax revenue from increased economic activity in the USA.

Finally the basis of price increases causing social turmoil is not supported by facts. Until WalMart revolutionized distribution, people paid as much as 30% more for goods that were similar but inferior to today's quality. There weren’t riots at the main street department and hardware stores in the 60’s and 70’s … just a lower quality of life.

But I come back to my core point. The trade war with China is a disaster for China because it’s economy is built on being an exporter. Maybe someday China will have the kind of societal balance that the USA has that makes the need for huge trade surpluses unnecessary. But someday isn’t now. China would collapse if export demand suddenly collapsed. This is what happened across the globe when the relatively tiny USA economy collapsed in the 1930s. A depression in the USA was societal collapse across the world.