Chinese group chat and microblogging apps like Weibo and QQ are usually filled with videos of popular social media influencers and the latest trending memes. That wasn’t the case earlier this week, when all the chatter focused on President Trump’s surprise decision to abandon his failed trade war with China.
After ratcheting up tariffs on Chinese goods to 145 percent and grinding trade to a near halt, Trump announced on Monday that he was lowering tariffs back to 30 percent while the two nations figure out a date for a future meeting. Chinese President Xi Jinping never did satisfy Trump’s macho demand for a phone call. Trump blinked anyway.
The tone shift in China’s social media conversation was brief, but it was a clear indication that Trump’s trade war is a hot topic among the Chinese public in a way that his first-term trade war wasn’t. His failure to extract any concessions from China is now a potent and highly visible symbol of American weakness. If Trump backs down so easily, our Pacific allies wonder, what good is an American alliance at all?
For decades, Democratic and Republican secretaries of State have pursued an active role in the Pacific as a means to counter China’s efforts to politically and economically dominate the region. Trump’s sudden backpedal undermines a core part of that work, and Xi didn’t miss a beat in seizing the moment. In a speech less than a day after Trump paused China’s tariffs, Xi outlined China’s messaging strategy to other nations in unusually blunt language.
“Bullying and tyranny will only lead to self-isolation,” Xi said. “There are no winners in trade wars.”
That’s rich coming from Xi, no stranger to using China’s economic might as a weapon to pressure his neighbors into doing what he wants. But if many Asian leaders are aware of China’s capacity for turning the economic screws on misbehaving nations, they also see that, between America and China, only America has repeatedly backed down when pressed.
If they are weighing which superpower to upset, Trump’s lack of resolve makes the calculus easy.
Let’s be clear, though: Trade wars and sky-high tariffs are bad. They make little economic sense and, as we’ve seen, mainly produce economic chaos at home. Trump’s quick surrender, however, has also sent a clear message to foreign capitals that the White House doesn’t have the grit to finish the fights it starts. For European countries considering whether to negotiate with Trump on tariffs, his weakness to Chinese pressure will certainly harden the EU’s resolve.
The irony of all that chaos is that Trump’s trade war has actually left America less influential on the global stage. The Southeast Asian countries that were for decades the centerpiece of American foreign policy in the Pacific are now abandoning the United States at an alarming pace. In our place, those nations are forming new security and economic agreements that exclude America from the conversation entirely.
Even the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, once a close American partner, hinted this week that Trump’s economic protectionism and unreliability could force the 10-state body to go its own way on trade policy. China, Japan and North Korea also signed on to ASEAN’s warning, a not-so-subtle reminder to America that our Pacific allies could easily turn to other, much closer economic powers if Trump’s demands become too burdensome.
It only took Trump a few short months to dismantle decades of valuable work in the Pacific while also offering Xi and the Chinese Communist Party a free assist in undermining American influence. It would have been bad enough if the damage from Trump’s trade chaos was limited to pushing the U.S. economy into a near-certain recession. Instead, he now threatens to give China an even stronger hand in undermining American foreign policy.
The GOP might not feel it yet, but Trump’s mounting losses come at a heavy cost for our country and for the world. Trump and the Republicans who enable him are failing our country by handing Xi and his party easy propaganda victories that make it harder to align the world against Chinese illiberalism. Do they even recognize the problem?
Max Burns is a veteran Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies.
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