In so strikingly singling out China as the focus of America’s economic and geopolitical ire, Trump was not merely clarifying that the United States views China and its regnant Communist Party as our leading 21st-century threat – he was also taking yet another notable step toward fulfilling his own lifelong goal of fundamentally resetting the terms of the U.S.-China bilateral relationship. As Trump put it at the time in a tweet: “Today I directed the U.S. Trade Representative to take action so that countries stop CHEATING the system at the expense of the USA!” American consumers, we were reliably informed, would get cheaper and more abundant goods; American exporters would get a massive and exciting new market to peddle their wares; and the Chinese people themselves would soon reap the rewards of the “political liberalization” that could only come about through “economic liberalization.” This was the dominant thinking when Nixon visited China over a half-century ago, when the George W. Bush administration welcomed China into the World Trade Organization in 2001, and when Barack Obama hosted and toasted Xi Jinping at the White House in 2015.
Author: Josh Hammer
Published at: 2025-04-12 21:51:32
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