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Many thought that President Donald Trump would be different from presidential candidate Donald Trump. Now, after nearly four years with President Trump, we know quite a bit about how he views the rest of the world.
Trump does not like international agreements that unite the United States and where many countries are involved to decide.
He has:
He pulled the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement and showed with his fingers how much warmer he thinks the world will be at the press conference.
Withdrew the United States from the nuclear deal with Iran.
It removed the US from the World Health Organization, WHO.
Threatened with withdrawing the United States from NATO.
Trade war with China
Trump promised that “America first” would apply in all contexts. He has followed that.
Most of it will be produced in the United States. When he assumed the presidency, imports since China is almost exactly four times the size of exports to China, according to Census.gov.
He also believes that China is copying and stealing American technology. Trump wants to end that.
Trade wars cost Americans too
A trade war is a war where the most important weapon is Toll. This will prevent the enemy from selling your products in their home country.
Trump imposed additional tariffs of 25 percent, among other things, on steel, machinery and parts of machines and hard drives from China.
At that time, China introduced a 25 percent tariff on, among other things, American soybeans, pork, motorcycles and whiskey.
Then Trump responded with additional tariffs on China’s clothing, footwear, electronics and other consumer goods.
Finally, Trump has denied that the network and mobile giant Huawei and the Chinese TikTok operate in the United States.
But the trade war has had its price. Many American farmers lost money because they were unable to sell products to China. Trump feared losing his votes and paid hundreds of billions of crowns in subsidies to farmers affected by the trade war, according to the Politico website.
It is not just the farmers who are losing.
Industrial production decreased in 2019, according to figures from the United States Federal Reserve, cited in The Washington Post. Many American companies are outgunned because parts from China have become more expensive.
Consumers are also losing out as Chinese-made clothing, shoes and electronics have become more expensive.
How strong is China now?
There is no objective way to measure force between great powers. But most agree on a handful of areas that should count.
- Military power. There, the United States remains superior and will be for some time.
- Political force. It is immediately more difficult to measure. China, for example, is more stable, but stability is based on an authoritarian system of government and the suppression of any opposition. The crown pandemic has shown that an authoritarian regime can be more effective than many democracies in crisis situations.
- Cultural and ideological influence in the rest of the world. Culturally, the United States remains superior. But democracy as an ideology is not that strong. China has shown that liberal democracy is not a prerequisite for economic growth, as many in the West have argued.
- Economic strength. China remains number two, after the United States. But China is growing much faster. China is investing long-term in infrastructure and communications in much of Asia, Africa and Europe. There, the Chinese are building a network of high-speed railways, roads and ports, dubbed the “Belt Road Initiative”, BRI. BRI will make many countries dependent on a good relationship with China. Its railroads are also superior to the Americans.
There are many questions. Here are some of them
How useful is American military superiority when most conflicts cannot be resolved using a superior arsenal of weapons?
Will China use its growing economic power politically in the future more than it does now?
We don’t know, but it is likely.
The struggle for influence in Europe
We saw that China was exporting mouthpieces and respirators in abundance to Europe in early summer. The United States was trying to cut off a shipment of 200,000 Chinese face masks on its way to Germany when the plane landed in Thailand, The Guardian reported.
The German interior minister called it the “wild west” and protested.
The Chinese stood still and watched Western countries compete for their help.
Earlier this spring, Trump had tried to buy the German pharmaceutical company CureVac, so they could produce vaccines only for the United States, according to Reuters.
The German government also said no then.
Some European governments hope that the situation with Trump in the White House will pass.
But many people think that it will never be the same as before.
What difference does it make if it’s Biden or Trump?
Biden will attempt to bring to life the basic idea of postwar foreign policy, namely that the United States should lead the world. They have done so both through international agreements and organizations and through US-led coalitions on a case-by-case basis.
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Donald trump
International agreements:
- It will remain outside the agreements that are abandoned
- It will not enter into new multinational agreements.
- It will insist that all NATO countries spend at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense by 2025
China
- He wants the Chinese economy to disconnect from the US, although it will hurt some US companies.
- Cut off cooperation with Chinese companies suspected of stealing US technology or conducting surveillance
- Negotiations will continue on a trade agreement that serves the interests of American farmers, technology companies and industrial companies.
- Won’t renew START deal with Russia on long-range nuclear weapons unless China also joins
By the way:
- It will stick to the “America first” strategy. It will be excluded from international collaboration on vaccines.
- He will try to show strength in a way that causes traditional allies to distance themselves further from the United States.
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Joe biden
International agreements:
- Will rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement
- Will re-enter the nuclear deal with Iran
- Will join the World Health Organization again
- It will assure others in NATO countries that the United States prioritizes the alliance.
China:
- Trump’s hard line will largely continue, it will be politically difficult to reverse it. But Biden will be more predictable.
- She will be clearer in her criticism of human rights abuses in China
- He will try to combine a hard line with dialogue with the president of China
- It will renew the START agreement with Russia as a step towards a world free of nuclear weapons
By the way:
- You will participate in the global fight against covid-19, blah. with the distribution of vaccines
- It will try to resurrect faith in American democracy as a model worth emulating
A weakened America
The United States remains the world’s leading superpower, primarily military.
But Trump’s attempts to put China in its place have affected American producers and consumers at least as much as China.
China has quickly found other buyers for its products. And China is growing much faster.
The trade war and the pandemic have weakened America’s reputation in the world. China has shown resistance and action.
Perhaps it was during Trump’s fall from the throne that the world’s leading nation gained momentum. Perhaps Trump, or Biden, can reverse the trend in the next few years. We may be living in the middle of a slow motion revolution.
We won’t know the answer for a few years.
