annabenedetti
like marbles on glass
Goodbye, American dominance, leader of the free world. Now Trump's the bridesmaid without a bride:
contrarian.substack.com
Trump is China’s Favorite ‘Useful Idiot’
On every front, Trump is helping China
contrarian.substack.com
China is now in the cat-bird’s seat, the beneficiary of Trump’s cloddish foreign policy. Trump’s delusional vision of a Russia-U.S. partnership and his zig-zagging tariff war with China (with intermittent attempts at ingratiation) have pushed these two powers together. Worse, seeing Trump as weak, gullible, and unsophisticated, the two powers have found a new member of the alliance of autocrats.
The sight of Wednesday’s elaborate, humongous Chinese military parade (putting Trump’s pathetic, disorganized birthday parade to shame) sent an unmistakable signal to the ever more enfeebled president. The summit that preceded it was an even bigger rebuke to the United States. The New York Times reports:
Between imposing secondary sanctions on India and trying to take credit for the India-Pakistan ceasefire, Trump wound up alienating Modi—and giving China a new ally. As Paul Krugman observes: “America has spent decades trying to cultivate good relations with India, which could be a useful counterweight to China. Now we have a nearly complete rupture, with India actually cozying up to China.”
Not so long ago, India was pursuing the so-called China Plus One, a strategy to make India an alternative to China. Trump has made hash of that, to the delight of Beijing. “Mr. Trump’s tariffs are already causing dislocation in supply chains. India has been rendered far less enticing to American importers,” the New York Times reports. “[India’s economy] is currently fifth and on pace to overtake Japan soon. If the United States won’t help or, worse, gets in its way, India has no choice but to get closer to Beijing, even as it holds to its goal of becoming a stronger manufacturing rival to its giant neighbor.”
Incredibly, China has been the biggest beneficiary of an assortment of Trump’s domestic and foreign moves. When he blew up USAID; China was happy to step in to influence peddle in developing countries. Business Insider reported earlier this year:
At a moment when China is striving to expand its influence in Africa, a demonstration of U.S. fecklessness and indifference will only accelerate that process. (Even aside from China, Trump has immeasurably harmed U.S. interests in short-circuiting infectious diseases, gaining access to precious minerals, and stemming outflow of migrants that can destabilize neighbors. Our self-sabotage undermines all that.)
While Trump bizarrely has tried to stymie green energy development; China accordingly has raced ahead to extend its lead in electric car manufacturing and exports. “The speed and scale of China’s electric vehicle revolution has caught the world by surprise, and analysts say this trend shows no sign of slowing down,” CNBC reports. China is projected to “manufacture 36 million vehicles per year, or four out of every 10 cars built globally” by 2030.
Trump has engaged in a senseless trade war with our closest trading partners; China now has an opening to pick up new markets. In particular, democratic allies in Asia increasingly will find no place to turn but China, as crippling sanctions close off the U.S. market.
“Trump is showing that he is willing to violate long-standing norms and strike at the core of other countries’ prosperity—and that nothing in the American system will stop a president hell-bent on punishing his own country’s allies for the sake of domestic politics,” Atlantic magazine’s Phillips Payson O’Brien wrote in April.
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