President Donald Trump’s foremost accomplishment during his first term was breaking the decadeslong bipartisan consensus that Beijing’s threats were only slight irritants amid the far greater opportunity offered by China’s economy. That shift endured into the Biden administration.
Today, however, Trump seems determined to reverse course. Trump is increasingly replacing a China policy rooted in hard-headed strength with one of overt appeasement. This is a big problem.
China poses the most significant threat to U.S. national security since that of the Axis powers during World War II. While the Soviet Union had a far greater number of nuclear weapons than China currently possesses, Beijing is growing its nuclear weapons stockpile apace. More importantly, China’s economic leverage allows it to bribe, blackmail, and coerce nations around the world into obedience with its political interests. The Soviet Union was never able to do what China does.
China steals hundreds of billions of dollars in intellectual property from nations and corporations globally every year. It blackmails close American allies and partners from Europe to Africa to Asia to avoid condemning its human rights abuses, its destruction of fishing habitats, its coercive foreign policy, its unrestrained espionage, and its adventurous militarism. All-powerful Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping has declared ownership of the near entirety of the South China and East China Seas. These absurd claims encompass vast energy and fishing reserves and encroach on the exclusive economic zones of other nations.
Unfortunately, Trump appears to have determined that China is too powerful to stand up to.
Trump is under pressure. Injecting a new surge of inflation against household spending power, Trump’s tariffs have caused chaos for U.S. manufacturers and farmers. With his much-prized opinion poll ratings plummeting, Republicans are facing a midterm election rout next November. Trump is desperate for an economic boost. Beijing knows this and is making Trump beg for it.
Trump is indeed begging.
Take Trump’s decision to abandon sanctions on China’s Ministry of State Security intelligence service for its rapacious infiltration of malware into U.S. utilities networks. As the Financial Times reports, Trump fears the sanctions might disrupt a trade truce recently agreed between the two countries. This is an extraordinarily foolish decision.
For one, China’s economy is far weaker than it publicly admits. Trump surely knows as much from his intelligence briefings. But by giving China a pass on preparing to shut down U.S. civilian water and electricity supplies, the Trump administration encourages China to escalate its aggression. It also undermines any credible leverage that could be used to demand that allies adopt stricter policies against Chinese espionage. Expect the United Kingdom government to point to this decision when it authorizes China’s new super-espionage embassy in London in the coming weeks, for example.
Unfortunately, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Trump’s kowtowing to Beijing.
Also on the economic side of the appeasement ledger are semiconductor chips. Under pressure from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, the Trump administration is considering allowing Tech supergiant Nvidia to sell its advanced H200 chips to China. Trump should be joining the bipartisan consensus in Congress, which recognizes that those chips would help China to develop weapons with which to kill Americans in a future war. Instead, Trump appears to enjoy dangling the sale of these chips to win other, far less valuable concessions from Xi, as many Americans, myself included, own stocks in Nvidia. Still, national security must always take precedence over profit margins.
It’s not just economics where Trump’s appeasement is coming to the fore.
Consider what happened last week, when Trump admonished Japan’s new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi. Trump did so in response to Takaishi’s courageous decision to do what numerous U.S. administrations have long asked Japan to do: help better deter China from attacking Taiwan. After Takaichi warned that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would threaten Japan’s survival and would thus justify Japanese military intervention, Beijing threatened to chop Takaichi’s head off and destroy Japan. It also introduced new economic restrictions on Tokyo.
The U.S. Ambassador to Tokyo, a Trump appointee, rightly had Japan’s back. Not so Trump. Instead, following a call with Xi in which Xi presumably complained about Takaichi, Trump phoned his Japanese ally and told her to shut up about Taiwan. Trump thus effectively educated Japan and every other American ally that their suffering military threats and economic pain to support U.S. foreign policy really isn’t worth it. Trump is right to predicate his foreign policy on putting America first. However, he is mistaken to assume that America can succeed by treating allies like disposable prophylactics for occasional problems. Trust matters.
If China conquers Taiwan, it will cause grave harm to America’s global influence, trade relationships, and the defense of freedom against Chinese Communist hegemony. America will be pushed out of the Pacific, and much of our prosperity will be lost with it. Takaichi has demonstrated rare political courage in swiftly taking action after entering office to boost defense spending and align with America. Trump’s reward? Betraying her for Xi’s, always short-term, favor.
Trump has been similarly weak when it comes to China’s increasingly aggressive ramming maneuvers against Filipino vessels within Manila’s exclusive economic zone. Like Japan, the Philippines is a U.S. treaty defense ally.
Xi must surely think that the time is ripe to broach new frontiers of aggression.
FBI MAKES ARREST IN CONNECTION TO MYSTERY JAN. 6 PIPE BOMBS
The president needs to wake up. China poses an unparalleled threat to U.S. security. If Trump is unwilling to hold China accountable for hyper-aggressive espionage activities, what message is he sending to Beijing?
Surely the message is that when it comes to dealing with Trump, the art is to increase the pressure on American allies. After all, over the past month, Trump has shown that he’s willing to burn allies and American interests alike.