Above all, hold onto Israel, our 51st state and the repository of the foundations of our civilization.
Never forget, never again.
I would like to have a lot of allies, but only on the terms that it is a mutually beneficial relationship. We don't really "need" them, they need us more than we need them.
6
The samething was said when Trump harangued our allies over military spend and those alliances are now stronger than under previous administration.
Trump does need China and Russian help with n. Korea that's going to be critical for dealing with Kim.
We all thought Trump was Putin's puppet. Turns out He's Xi Jinping's puppet. (Or maybe both their puppets!)
6
"Interesting" how Trump seems to favor China and Russia to the exclusion of what used to be America's allies. I'm sure there must be something in it for him personally and has nothing to do with making America great again.... He seems to be intentionally throwing American under the bus because ?????????
13
The allies rely on the US. A lot. NATO is practically funded by the US. The allies are just upset that America is doing something other than signing the checks.
As China expert Michael Pillsbury has shown, the Chinese plan to dominate earth by 2050. Whether we like it or not, we are in a cold war with China, one in which America will have to greatly increase its collective will power and intelligence if it is to have any chance of preventing China from subjugating us. We cannot defend ourselves against China’s growing economic, technical, and military power without as many strong allies as possible. That’s why Trump’s totally tactless attack on our allies is so stunningly stupid.
We need strong allies if we are to prevent China from dominating us because: As Harvard’s Graham Allison claims, China’s economy already produces 10% more goods than America’s. Many expect it to produce 2 to 3 times as much in 20 to 30 years. Even when China’s economy is twice ours, their wage rate will be less than half of ours, meaning it will be able to build weapons for much less than us. Because China spends almost nothing on entitlements, it can invest a much larger share of its soon to be much larger GDP on infrastructure and armaments than us. China is by far the world’s largest producer of electronics. It graduates 5 times as many students in STEM than us. The Chinese have higher average IQs than we do. China has budgeted 150 billion dollars to dominate artificial intelligence --the most important technology in human history -- by 2025. And China can spy on us and our technology much more easily than we can spy on them and theirs.
12
There is no such thing as free trade. All countries have tariffs. Trump is just making better deals because we can. Its not such a big deal as you are trying to make it.
6
I'd just like to remind everyone that Sanders and, eventually, Clinton were against the TPP, as well. Clinton knew better, but she was pulled by politics. In other words, a large proportion of the American public believes the US should disengage from the world and does not even think about the consequences. There is insufficient check on Trump's ignorance and incompetence in such a situation.
4
The author’s warnings are neither the first nor the last that we will hear regarding the childish and unsophisticated foreign trade miasmas of Donald Trump. Unfortunately, it may already be too late for the U.S. to reconstruct the world as it was before November 2016. The essential ingredient in trade agreements has remained unchanged for thousands of years, namely trust. In less than two years the chronically untrustworthy Trump has demolished the very concept of trust. After TPP, Paris, NAFTA, Iran, and now the unfolding tariff fiasco, there is absolutely no reason why any nation, friend or foe, competitor or partner, should trust anything uttered by Trump or his minions. The U.S. remains big, rich, and powerful, but it is no longer indispensible and there is absolutely nothing that is produced here that cannot be obtained from an alternative source. Trump has spent his life pointing his finger at people and demanding that they prostrate themselves before him. He is about to find out that the rest of the world is not impressed and can point fingers as well.
19
Presumably, our allies share these interests.
Trump is a dream come true for China and Putin, both of which have been trying for decades to weaken alliances like NATO, the EU and the G-7; and to prevent the US from creating new alliances like the TPP. Putin got exactly what he worked so hard for. China just seems to have been lucky.
10
NATO has been weak for a while: The US is the only one funding it.
1
Trump has only one objective, that is to be seen as a man of action. Irrespective of the long term implications for America's own security and world standing. Senator McCann is the one person who has truly sized up Trump: a man with no core values!
3
"China is also subverting global human-rights mechanisms and supplanting the concept of universality of human rights with its notion that economic development supersedes individual civil and political rights."
Sorry, social and economics rights have always been considered human rights along with political and civil rights. A country, whether the U.S. or China, that emphasizes only one or the other, is still a human rights violator.
5
If the American establishment relies on the narrative of the TPP capability to restore the US economic strength in Asia, then this fantasy would become easily a reality, as soon as any next sitting American president simply establishes it.
Concerning the human rights, the best way to define the US backdrop on such issue, especially in its previous contact with other peoples, is that such encounters would be better fit for a police report than to History textbooks. So to claim any 'credibility' from the US to pose as 'world watchdog' on the issu is simply a bad joke!
3
Sorry Ms. Glaser but deep intellectual thought and nuance are not trump's strong suits, knee jerk reaction is. Trump speaks in tweets, not deep thoughts. If his tariffs produce a trade war as many economists and business leaders predict (GWB's tariffs were a failure) we can expect a change of posture once the people with money (Wall Street) put pressure on him. This does not mean however that he will begin to mend fences with our allies in the G-7 or keep our enemies close. Trump shoots from the hip, thinks he is god and gods think that they need no one and are infallible. Trump likes to throw his Mount Olympus style thunderbolts. We are in for a rough road.
4
Uh, Bonnie, the 'allies' will hold on to US!
1
As long as Ivanka secured her deal with China, Trump doesn't care what happens to the U.S. It's a cash-grab for him.
12
"Mr. Xi called Marxism a “powerful ideological weapon for us to understand the world, grasp the law, seek the truth and change the world.” To push back against that effort, the United States and its friends must restore confidence in democracy worldwide."
Marxism is an alternative to *capitalism* ... something which China has fully embraced.
Democracy is an alternative to authoritarian regime something that both China and the American Republican Party have fully embraced.
If we want to push back against this slide towards autocracy in China we need to set an example of success here in America.
A system easily influenced by 2nd-world foreign nations ... One that fails to represent the American population... One that gives better representation to corporations and uneducated rural voters than it does the majority population .... One with some of the highest infant mortality rates ... One with some of the highest rates of drug abuse ... One with the lowest quality of healthcare ....
... and more-over a country in complete disarray due to what amounts to a coup by a fifth column ...
just ... doesn't seem like the sort of example of "success" that *anyone* would want to emulate let alone a country that's largely left many of the problems we're facing in the anulls of their history.
You can't march around claiming you live in the "greatest/free-est country in the world" when nothing could be further from the truth.
8
Read a suggestion recently that Trump is a Manchurian Candidate. Everything he does benefits China. Everything.
12
Trump wants America to be an isolated country full of uneducated workers eager and willing to take any underpaid job with no benifits. He doesn't know anything about government and how it works or how the agreements he destroyed will end up locking the United States out of thriving world markets and cause huge increases in almost every product and service we use daily here at home.
6
The Chinese are on their knees for us not to pass a terrorist, everybody else must pay their way, the G7 or worried because they cannot go up against the strongest, actually the only, economy that matters in the world right now
'Money is the ultimate answer to every question," WAS THE ANSWER MY FATHER OFTEN GAVE ME. It happens to be mostly true in trade as well. But in Trump's case it is power and the support of the misinformed he leads.
His base is not composed of deplorables but most are misinformed by their addiction to Faux News from Fox News.
7
When the European religious extremists did not start to colonize North America, China, a centralized empire produced 40% of the world activity, yes China it still an empire and it is trying to take back its place. there is no moral judgment to do, just look at the past to try to read the present. And the Trump administration decided to check how powerful is it's power. Why not, for now, we will obey, as European I mean, but it sure that my felling are very clear : build an EU army and leave Nation, first step to transform EU into a credible player.
1
I very much agree with Ms. Glaser's analysis...but would hope that some of her assumptions are NOT accepted. She seems to base a lot of her conclusions on a continuation of the 20th Century alignment of nation states. I would strongly suggest a careful consideration of NAFTA's importance to our future.....and a renewal of the Monroe Doctrine, amended to fit into the 21st Century. It is absolutely critical to USA and North America's prosperity that no one else assert control in Central America, in Cuba, in Haiti(Hispanola), and in Puerto Rico. NO One. The TransPacific Agreement was, basicly, a bridge too far....a foolish, overzealous advancement of an out of control Wall Street Hustle.....China was playing us for fools. Much as Taiwan is a strategic outpost in China's sphere, we CANNOT allow China to assert its control over Nicaraugua nor over Cuba(it's coming....if we continue this ridiculously ineffective embargo).
Truth be told, if an American came to sell me democracy, it wouldn't be a very convincing narrative. Just looking at what your own democracy gets up to and how its mechanisms are subverted and emasculated doesn't inspire much confidence.
Besides, as long as Ivanka stands to gain from her contacts in China, don't hold your breath expecting pushback.
10
Given the trauma and danger Trump has thrust on the world, all countries should boycott the U.S. for the remainder of the Trump administration. Only then will we understand our true dependance on allies, alliances and shared global ideals.
12
"One of the largest sources of demand for U.S. govt bonds continues to shrink. Foreign investors purchased 12.7% of the $193 billion of notes and bonds sold in the Treasury’s April auctions, down from 15.8% in March...
"The fall in foreign demand comes as the Treasury -- which sold roughly $2 trillion of notes and bonds at auctions last year -- is ramping up the size of its debt issues in order to pay for the $1.5 trillion tax cut package passed in December. This year, as auction sizes have increased, demand has drifted lower." (WSJ)
This is really not the time to be waging a trade war. The huge federal deficit, courtesy of the GOP, will likely lead to a huge trade deficit and that means the US really needs huge purchases of Treasury issues by foreigners. Without this recycling, US capital spending would be crowded out.
Will Trump ever understand that the US needs friendly foreigners more than ever? Probably not.
6
Trump decries allies because it means treating others as equal partners - which is totally inconsistent with an "American First" strategy. To produce red meat for his carnivorous base, everyone must me seen as an enemy. Focused only on his base, DJT is oblivious to the damage he's doing to America's traditional alliances. He treats our biggest enemy, Russia, as a friend, and makes enemies of our true friends. As our would be emperor often says, sad!
See: RevolutionOfReason.com
TheRogueRevolutionist.com
6
Not all American allies are created equal in conformity with America's best interests and values.
America's most critically important beneficial allies are Australia, Canada, Europe, (particularly France, Germany and the United Kingdom )Japan and Mexico.
While America's most damaging dangerous 'allies' are Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Pakistan, Philippines, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
With friends like these America cannot afford foes like a rising China and a setting Russia. Nor an isolated Iran and North Korea.
Somewhere in between are the likes of American allies Brazil, Indonesia, Nigeria, South Africa, South Korea and Thailand.
4
Interesting that your list of our most important allies matches up pretty much exactly with Trump's list of nations he most wants to offend, harass, demean, and and punish economically, don't you think?
Also you left off Russia, obviously high on Trump's clandestine 'most favored dictator' roll.
1
It is essential to "temper" our unilateralism and
protectionist proclivity. The leveling of the world-trade playing field is long over due; but by employing an ignorant, presidential bull in a China closet to do so, will only set back our country even further in this regard.
4
Being an "ally" doesn't mean that you let them rip you off. You have to stand up for your country first, unless you're a Harvard grad who puts the world first.
1
"rip you off'? Canadian wages are higher than US wages as well as providing universal health care and accessible university to it's citizens...as are Europe. How is it that the US cannot complete with the real first world nations? If anything's competitively unfair, it's lower US social and labour costs are cheaper than their allies...hardly MAGa but the 'victim' nation.
5
Trumps trade "policies" are not going to help us. The US is becoming irrelevant as China and Russia cozy up to our allies after we slapped them with our misguided "America First"! As for your comment about the US being taken advantage of, Canada actually imports more steel than it exports and most of their imports are from us! How do you think that's going to affect our steel industry plus the many other tariffs Canada is poised to implement against the US, because of Trump. You are misinformed and, as your comment about Harvard educated people shows, in thrall to the Trump attack on educated "elites". Too bad for you.
4
People have said all along that Trump's "policies" - which began as a sort of verbal vomit served to raise a cheer - would catapult China into the global superpower. And make us more irrelevant.
But, as keep saying, at least we got a conservative Justice and a tax package. And bakers who can bake freely for God.
Trump is a bully who doesn't recognize that he lacks the bully pulpit to back it up. He has advisors who are incompetent and unschooled in reality, and he has a tendency to not bother with caring about ramifications.
So yes, he is making China the big winner; but he will get votes from the steel workers who think they will come out ahead. And by the time the ramifications of his policies hit us hard, there will be another President in place who will get the blame. Trump will be on the leading line blaming like crazy.
21
Donald and Vladimir speak frequently. Mr. Putin's sign off on U.S. policy is the only thing that matters to Donald Trump, besides Donald Trump.
Republicans are a disgraceful group of complicit enablers that simply remain silent as they are now the party of Trump.
You Trump supporters and Republicans are so brave. Perhaps you can convince Betsy DeVos that the preferred language classes in the future should be Russian and Chinese.
9
Trump doesn't want allies. He only wants people and countries that he can personally dominate and humiliate or, if unable (e.g., China & Russia), to personally enrich himself and family. Hence the ZTE deal where he took a 1/2Billion$ payoff by China (into his Indonesian resort) in exchange for allowing ZTE to sell spyware here (over objections from US intelligence and military). The key to understanding any future trade deal he makes with China (or any other country) will be the personal bribe (and likely money paid to GOP 'leadership' to keep them happy and quiet).
14
This piece demonstrates a standard American Economics Think-Tank formula when writing op-eds: (1) Set up a bogeyman. It's China's turn. (2) Play the victim card. They don't play by "our rules". It's unfair to us. (3) Play the paranoid card. They are all ganging up on us. (4) Play the human-rights card. They don't respect human rights (like we do, ha-ha!) We are the good guys. (5) Find partners to counter-act the bogeyman. Even bullies need partners. (6) They have a plan. We don't. Make them scrap their plans. (7) They work too hard. We don't. They have to slow down. (8) Repeat a made-up accusation enough times so people will start to believe it. Like, they "steal" our stuff, it must be true because our CIA people said so. No proof needed, secret stuff. They "force" us to sign away technology through joint venture contracts agreed by all parties. (9) Play the bad luck card. They are so lucky because we have Trump as the President. (10) We are still exceptional. Amen.
2
The inability of a substantial portion of the American electorate to think and act logically dooms our nation to irrelevance. This President and this Congress are symptoms of their myopia.
31
In the past China had the opportunity to rule the world but pulled back. Something tells me that unless the US smartens up China won't pull back this time. A "very stable genius" should be able to see that coming.
10
The minutiae of trade agreements aside, what is happening in this country is a build-up of rage. The disputes between powers will be settled as they have always been settled: at the end of a gun. Wars like plagues are good for the economy, if one survives.
2
China is effectively copying what the USA did through the World Bank, post WW2.
They are making loans and creating dependence upon China in much of the third world.
Our current "leadership" are so far out of their depth that it will never occur to them that they have given away the keys to the kingdom.
Can we make it through another 2-1/2 years of this?
30
At the center of every international relationship there is strategy. That's universally acknowledged. But a careful, quiet negotiation with a win/win attitude - a long term goal of success for all parties involved can lead to a better world.
When we acknowledge that every human deserves a better life, we reassert our moral leadership. This is one planet. This is one species. The endless tribal competition that a primitive being like Trump promotes simply serves to remind us that perhaps we are no different than other animals. Actually, maybe worse. Ants and bees cooperate better.
5
Ms. Glaser, you have loathed China as wrongdoer in 6 paragraphs. Fine.
Then you have advocated alliances. Also fine.
Then you have criticised Mr. Trump´s behaviour and advocated an US strategy to compete with a rising China. Comprehensible.
But an alliance is "more than one". There is no paragraph for allies in your article their benefit is no topic. Allies seem to be allowed to shine all lights on US credibility, leadership and so on and to fight China´s behavior on the base of your guidelines. That´s all for them.
This approach is nothing new but not acceptable for potential allies. This well known way of thinking was the reason why US had no chance to conclude TTIP after years of negotiation at last. Mr. Trump had nothing to do with this.
The major change is Mr. Trump new approach:
"If US has to compromise US doesn´t feel the need to accept in substance why should we do all the useless talk then to make alliances? It cannot work that way so it didn´t work."
That´s not wrong.
The problem is his conclusion:
"We have to do it alone without any alliance so we don´t have to think about these neccessary but unwanted compromise to forge alliances"
This is consistent but short-circuited in the end if you can´t do it without alliances.
So your criticism is right. But it cannot solve the well known problem that had led to this: The need to accept mutual conditions for alliances by ALL allies even you haven´t adressed by one single word in your article.
3
Putin may have helped install Trump, but China benefits as much as Russia from his presidency.
14
Oh, I think, ultimately China will benefit even more than Russia. Far more. trump wants attention and money and access. China is giving him that while trump is handing the future to Xi Jinping.
7
I don't see much difference between the article and Trump. They both want American supremacy over the rest of the word at any price. They just differ a bit on how that should be achieved. However, in the end that doesn't make much difference: they lead us on the same path, Trump is just running a bit faster towards the abyss than Glaser.
There is no way China is going to give up its quest to technological leadership. It knows perfectly well that the US is doing the same - most under the guise of defense spending. Many in Europe are utterly disgusted by America's efforts to sabotage the Nordstream pipeline in an effort to force Europe to buy the much more expensive American LNG gas. And they hate its continuing efforts to play divide-and-conquer by playing EU members against each other.
Trump has broad support in the US for a good reason: he is just continuing existing policies. He is acting a bit more extreme and less diplomatic. It is for that reason that articles like this are clueless. They are in fact supporting Trump and missing the fact that America's relationship with the rest of the world needs some thorough re-thinking.
1
"its [China's] notion that economic development supersedes individual civil and political rights. And how is that different from America's Republican Party and the Trump Administration?
35
Trump is following what has "worked for him" in the business world. He views everyone as trying to take advantage of him. So his business model of stiffing others before they stiff you has gotten him to the point where he has to go further and further away to find people willing to do business with him. Jared operates the same way. The problem is, business people don't like it when you don't play by the rules. But to Trump, just another day at the office. He may be able to widen his circle in search of new "partners" unaware of his strategy, but every time he does that, he leaves a bigger trail of collateral damage in his wake. Make no mistake, everyone in the business world wants their cut. And the price you pay increases as you become more desperate. Ergo the hiding of tax returns and uncertainty of the quid pro quo with Russia. Trying to take this model to the geopolitical world becomes problematic as there are fewer places to turn and the price you pay becomes higher. And the old adage of "What goes around, comes around" is much more applicable. And sometimes, just like in business, paying more gets you more. The question Americans need to answer is : Is what we get geopolitically for our "investment" in other parts of the world worth the not so tangible benefit we get? There is something to be said for paying more for a Honda or Toyota versus buying a Chrysler or Ford. You pay more up front, but you have to admit, the peace of mind is worth it later.
7
It is not America driving away its allies it is just Trump. He is only interested in himself , not Amereica, and Trump likely has started a trade with G-7 counties as a favor to Putin, who has long dreamed of a way to weaken the western alliance. Putin has cultivated Trump for some time and has the ability to greatly enrich Trump in retirement, which is what he most wants.
18
Trump has no plans to retire or to ever leave office while alive. GOP will help him achieve that goal.
10
You elected him as your president. And your president he is driving your country away from your former allies. Period.
1
The US needs to make a basic adjustment in its thinking.
Rather than resisting, obstructing and threatening China's rise, it needs to accept reality and work with the inevitable major power in Asia.
The Chinese "aggression"mentioned in the article is China asserting its position in disputes with neighbors -- many of these are complex and are fundamentally not part of America's fundamental interests.
The key is to understand how the US came to be the "dominant power" and why it remains so.
Get a history book and discover just how long it took for the US to be FORCED out of it's "we are not the policeman of the world" attitude in the !920s, '30s and early '40s, and why it's remained in that role ever since. (hint Commies wanting to destroy nations en masse).
Next; why is China so vigorously attempting to become the new "policeman of the world" when no other nation has the slightest intention of attacking or conquering it.
Why is it building fake islands in the Sth China Sea and putting military bases on them...then claiming the ENTIRE Sth China Sea as it's OWN? This is not "economics"!
Why are you here defending these aggressive Communists, exactly?
For all the reasons Ms. Glaser documents for distrusting China’s motivations, which actually and quite clearly center on national self-interest, it is not wise to suggest that America’s closeness to its allies is weakening. Yet not all things can be strawberry shortcake when our bilateral trade agreements with them disfavor us. Lost American jobs and economic growth foregone in the name of maintaining trade agreements that disfavor us is a matter that must be addressed and resolved. Only on a basis of multilateral fairness can we present the solid front to China that Ms. Glaser sees as threatened.
Alliances SHOULD be at the core NOT of a U.S. “strategy to effectively compete with a rising China” but with a JOINT Western strategy to do so. Suggesting that it must be kept strong to promote a policy defined by the U.S. alone relegates our allies to dependencies and justifies a lèse majesté approach to alliance formation that takes for granted that we must toss trade crumbs to our friends.
What’s more, disagreements on trade issues with allies pale by comparison to disagreements we have with China on trade, where it is we who overwhelmingly take the fight to one of the most closed economies in the world, efforts which redound to the benefit of our allies, as well.
Trump wants to renegotiate bilateral trade agreements with EVERYONE that better protect legitimate American interests. Let’s get on with it, so that the face we jointly turn to China is a maximally unified one.
The strength of the U.S. and global economy inherited by Trump has enabled Trump to take actions such as imposing irrational tariffs on close allies that decades ago would have had comparable consequences to the Smoot - Hawley tariff of 1930. However, these tariffs and actions like subsidizing coal and nuclear plants that are no longer economical further damages the U.S. global position and may present Trump's successor with a global crisis for which his present measures only weaken the US.
The US emerged from WWII as the preeminent global power and developed an international system that enabled the emergence of a global economy in which the dollar enjoyed the privileged status as the reserve currency. The stability of the international system guaranteed by US military and economic power made the US wealthy and enabled Europe and Japan to recover from war and lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. The Canadian and European steel industry posed no threat to US security or to American jobs.
The greater threat to the US is the destabilization of the international system. US actions such as the invasion or Iraq that destabilized the international system heavily damaged American interests and favored China as a rising power. Current willful destabilization of the international system will also damage US interests and not protect American workers. Imposing tariffs because you can is not sound trade policy.
18
Vid Beldavs:
You need to review your recent history. Both George W. Bush and Barack Obama imposed tariffs on European allies. The power to do so to protect legitimate U.S. interests is presidential, not specific to Trump. And none of these three presidents have imposed tariffs merely "because they could". And perhaps Trump is after a more reliable and fairer "stabilization". Not my call to make -- and certainly not yours.
Latvia, huh? Hacked any big U.S. banks lately?
Richard,
Any trade agreement that does not allow for a "win-win" will never succeed. If all parties do not feel that they have benefited from an agreement, the agreement will not survive. Please think about Germany after the first WW, think about the Middle East after Picot and Balfour. These Agreements were never fair to all involved and the proof is all in history now.
Trump is only concerned with enriching himself and his family. Think about the Licensing awarded to Ivanka from China, quid pro quo, indeed.
Finally, what good is an agreement when our signature and word mean nothing? Think about the Iran Deal, TPP and NAFTA.
Actions do have reactions.
Carol
China's president Xi Jinping has said "Reading is part of my lifestyle", and his reading includes Pedro Domingos's "The Master Algorithm" and Brett King's "Augmented: Life in the Smart Lane". In contrast, Trump never reads and neither cares nor has a clue about what machine learning can and can't do. If I were a betting man, I'd bet that China will overtake the United States in artificial intelligence technology within five years, that they won't look back on the increasingly-incompetent and corrupt Americans, and that Trumpist Republicans will continue to boast that they're making America great as we sink into the sunset and our allies slowly gravitate toward the new power in the east.
70
Don't forget, trump believes his button is bigger than just about anyone else's.
2
And you don't?
If not, then how come you are endlessly gnashing your teeth at how POWERFUL (to cause the end of civilization, and the world as we know it etc etc) he is?
Cognitive Dissonance thy name is Hillary shill!
The Chinese Century. Brought to you by Trump and his Collaborators.
Make CHINA Great Again.
45
Do we have to blame the president for everything???
Its time for americans to grow up and accept some basic realities....the American President is not, nor has ever been..."the most powerful man on planet earth".....in fact, what I have observed is that every president in recent memory, has been the most reviled, most ridiculed, most in-effective, bumbling, second-guessed individual on the planet......Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush-again, Obama, and now Trump....not a single one of them stands out as superhuman or having superior ability to do anything beyond getting their shoes tied properly. Thank god.
2
Here's an idea: Stop paying China to undermine the US.
Our trade with China sends them $ Billions, they send us cheap junk. They take our $ Billions and build aircraft carriers which they use to defend their take over of the South China Sea. We care about that because it means they control one of the busiest sea lanes in the world.
There are plenty of people who want to be our friend we could trade with. Stop enriching our enemy.
1
Yes, there are plenty of people who want to trade with the US. Trump is currently burning bridges with them; Canada, Mexico, and most of the EU members. Pretty soon we'll doing little more than trading between ourselves.
15
Are you proposing shutting down every dollar store and department store that sells Chinese products?
1
What is this about "shutting them down"?
Only a leftist with no knowledge of how economies work could be so ill-informed.
When the stuff in a dollar shop costs five dollars YOU will not be buying it, and the owner will eventually do the shutting down.
Got it?
"Beijing is promoting China's model of state-run capitalism and authoritarian politics as an alternative to free markets and democracy in the developing world." Unfortunately, so is Washington. Free markets mean globalization not isolation. Free markets mean no bailouts of steel and coal industries in America and state run telephone companies in China. Free markets don't carve out special deals for pharmaceutical, agricultural and weapons manufacturers (Big Pharma, Farmer and Armor). Our democracy has become a free market where bribes are distributed as campaign contributions and laws are made to benefit whole industries, such as insurance companies being allowed to dictate our healthcare laws. And the only difference between China's authoritarian rule and our present Administration is China's open about it while we have Sarah Huckabee Sanders lying about it. I expect China to do what's best for China, I didn't think America would help them so much by being such a poor example in comparison.
45
Exactly. Moreover, if you were a government official or a businessman in a developing country, whom would you better trust to bargain in good faith and to honor his commitments and contracts: Donald J. Trump or Xi Jinping?
6
Do we not understand that "state run capitalism" is simply "communism"? What is a corporation except a very successful model of Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto?? Isnt a corporation exactly that collective that equitably distributes its gains to all its members? (stockholders?)
1
Difference between China and US is that in China government owns or controls the business and in US, business owns or controls the government (politicians). People do not count.
66
Either way, both are oligarchies
5
The US needs transAtlantic alliances to best serve its interests but Trump's family interests are better served by his personal ties with the authoritarian regimes including that of China, which might pose a threat to the US trade and economic interests but still allows Ivanka brands to flourish in China.
28
China and Russia as well have a simple strategy: divide and conquer. China is eating our lunch with infrastructure investment and Russia is hacking us to shreds. Trump is playing right into their hands. The only question is how much economic and political power and prestige will the U.S. lose on the world stage in the long run? The beacon of freedom and liberty the United States once was is in decline.
23
Russia : divide and conquer ? Be serious, Russia has not enough population to exploit it's onw territy
pierre
It's, um, 2018.
Putin doesn't need 'people' to divide and conquer.
He is already dividing up our country with a few keyboards and a modem.
He and China are already dividing up the world just by skipping along behind Donald and picking up alliances wherever he drops them.
Probably its you who should get serious.
We've lost Africa, South America is heading that way, and the only thing keeping Asia partially in our orbit is the fearful history between them and the Chinese, soon to be undone by flashy infrastructure and gigantic offers of credit.
Not just in decline. No one respects the US anymore!
We ran that experiment in negotiating the TPP, which also would have largely fixed NAFTA. Both parties said they would refuse to agree to TPP. So that approach seems dead
Trump ran on the basis that bilateral deals were preferable. Probably fits his personal experience. He has been given a chance to prove he is right. I'm happy to see this run it course. There is really no alternative at this point--whatever the scholarly suggestions. Just need to step out of the way and let the President try his ideas. If they blow up he won't get re-elected. But hard to see Congress coming together to fix it.
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