Tariffs and Crypto: A Match Made in Hell (or Maybe Heaven, Depending Who You Ask)
Crypto and tariffs aren’t exactly a headline couple. One’s a cypherpunk fever dream about money without borders. The other is a blunt instrument of old-school economic nationalism. But weirdly enough, they’re starting to orbit each other in a way that could get… interesting.
Especially now that the U.S. and China are back to lobbing tariffs like it’s 2018 all over again. Biden’s latest volley just dropped: 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs, plus hikes on semiconductors, solar cells, and critical minerals. It’s economic warfare with a polite tie on. But underneath it, there’s a bigger tension — what happens when global trade becomes balkanized and money itself starts to go borderless?
That’s where crypto slips in through the side door.
Sanctions, Tariffs, and the Search for the Backdoor
Tariffs are just one tool in a broader trend: governments are using financial infrastructure as a weapon again. Sanctions. Capital controls. Trade restrictions. Swift bans. The modern economy’s version of siege warfare.
And when that happens, people (and companies, and governments) start looking for loopholes. Stablecoins. BTC. Privacy chains. Anything that lets them settle trade or move money without going through the Fed or the ECB or some Hong Kong clearing house that suddenly has new “rules.”
We’ve seen this in microdoses already:
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Russians swapping rubles for Tether after sanctions kicked in.
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Chinese firms using USDT on Tron to quietly grease the wheels of cross-border trade.
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Latin American importers using crypto to avoid FX limits.
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North Korea funding missile programs via crypto thefts and laundering through DEXs.
So yeah — when tariffs go up, crypto doesn’t get less relevant. It gets more.
China’s Playbook (and Its Holes)
China’s response to tariffs has never just been tit-for-tat. It’s also about hedging long-term dependence. And part of that is moving away from dollar-dominance. They’ve been pushing hard on the digital yuan, cutting dollar exposure in reserves, and building payment rails with countries like Russia, Iran, and Brazil.
But the digital yuan is still a domestic tool, and the dollar’s grip on trade is hard to shake. Which makes stablecoins — yes, even dollar-backed ones — a weirdly useful bridge. They’re liquid, censorship-resistant enough, and way faster than the legacy wire system. Don’t be surprised if more Chinese trade routes quietly settle in crypto, even if Beijing won’t officially bless it.
Made in America (Onchain)
Ironically, U.S. policy may be driving demand for the very thing it’s trying to contain. Tariffs push companies to reroute supply chains. Rerouting is messy, expensive, and geopolitically risky. Enter crypto rails: lower-cost, more liquid, and not (yet) tightly controlled.
If you’re a small importer in Indonesia, and you’re suddenly paying 25% more for solar panels because of a U.S.-China spat, maybe you don’t want to deal with JPMorgan for your next trade deal. Maybe you want to pay your Taiwanese supplier in USDC over a Layer 2.
Crypto isn’t replacing SWIFT anytime soon, but it’s chipping away at the edges. Tariffs just speed that up.
What’s the Risk?
The same stuff that makes crypto attractive for trade and tariff-dodging also makes it… well, regulatory napalm. Treasury doesn’t love the idea of stablecoins being used to blunt U.S. policy tools. That’s why we keep seeing pressure on Binance, on offshore USD flows, on self-custody wallets. It’s not just about “protecting consumers.” It’s about controlling the dollar’s reach.
So if crypto becomes a go-to tool for tariff arbitrage, expect the hammer to come down harder — especially on bridges, stablecoins, and exchanges that touch noncompliant jurisdictions.
The Takeaway
Crypto and tariffs don’t want to be a power couple. But in a world where governments use trade as a weapon and capital wants to move freely, they might not have a choice. Call it marriage by necessity. Or co-dependency.
And if you’re sitting on a protocol or service that makes cross-border crypto trade easier? You’re not just building a tech stack. You’re building an insurgency.
— John van Rijck, Analyst at AllCryptoWhitepapers.com
