Trump has been back from China for several hours now, and as near as anyone can tell he came back empty-handed. He claimed he had made some trade deals, but so far these claims have been unconfirmed by China. Maybe the Chinese will be buying soybeans and Boeing jets, and maybe they won’t.
See Franklin Foer, Xi Jinping Was Only Humoring Trump. It begins,
Spare a moment, please, for the lame-duck superpower. It calls itself the leader of the free world, but the free world no longer believes it. When it extends its hand, nobody rushes to accept. When it threatens, nobody trembles.
Foer’s piece argues that Trump, the lame-duck president, is turning the U.S. into a lame-duck superpower.
After President Trump arrived in Beijing this week, Xi Jinping showered him with pomp befitting a summit of great powers. Yet the Chinese leader permitted potshots at his guest to go viral on his country’s internet rather than suppressing them, as some observers expected he would during a state visit. Xi answered Trump’s lavish praise by sternly lecturing him about meddling with Taiwan. In the end, Xi offered nothing of great substance—no solutions to the war in Iran, no sweeping trade deals, no promises of access to rare earth minerals. Xi used the visit to humor the lame-duck president, waiting for his time to pass.
Xi believe the U.S. is in a decline from which it will not recover.
During the first Trump administration, foreign leaders flattered and accommodated the president out of deference to American power. They feared it; they relied on it. During the second administration, and especially since the beginning of the Iran war, their calculus has quietly shifted—not because the strategy of obsequiousness has failed, but because it’s no longer worth the trouble. Like many of his counterparts around the world, Xi has begun to assume that it’s not just Trump who is term-limited; it’s also his nation.
Trump’s war in Iran was meant to showcase American power. It did the opposite. In the course of failing to remove a much weaker regime or eliminate its nuclear threat, the United States blew through its arsenal—so much so that allies in the Pacific reasonably wonder whether enough munitions remain to protect them. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Pentagon is now worried that it lacks the firepower to execute contingency plans for defending Taiwan.
Trump really is running the U.S. the way he ran his businesses. He was a terrible businessman also. But Trump’s biggest problem is that he can’t bully the whole world. Nobody is afraid of him any more. And Trump’s folly in Iran has shown the world our military limitations, which are becoming more limited by the hour. Both China and Iran, Foer says, are not interested in cutting deals; they are just waiting us out. It’s a bleak assessment, but I can’t say he’s wrong.
Regarding Taiwan, do keep in mind that Taiwan has a near-monopoly on the production of the advanced semiconductor chips that are essential to pretty much all the technology you can think of. If this production capacity fell into China’s hands, this could create a situation worse than what’s going on in the strait of Hormuz.
Trump has complained that Taiwan “stole” the U.S. semiconductor industry, but that’s not true. What happened, as much as I understand it, is that beginning in the 1970s Taiwan invested considerable money and resources into developing ways to mass produce chips precisely and efficiently. They don’t design the chips themselves but produce chips for other companies. It’s less expensive for other companies around the world to have Taiwan make their chips than to make the chips themselves. The Taiwanese didn’t “steal” anything. They did something very smart that paid off for them.
Several months ago Congress approved the sale of $14 billion in arms, including missiles, air-defense systems, and anti-drone equipment, to Taiwan. This has been waiting for Trump’s sign off. Now Trump is saying he’s withholding approval in order to use the arms sale as leverage to force China to make a deal. It doesn’t seem to be working. Chris Buckley in the New York Times:
Taiwan’s government has been waiting for months for Mr. Trump to sign off on a $14 billion package of missiles, anti-drone equipment and air-defense systems intended to fortify the island against Beijing’s military threats.
Mr. Trump himself had pressured Taiwan to spend more on its own defense. Now he is using the very arms his administration had pushed the island to buy as leverage with China, the United States’ main adversary.
Mr. Trump told reporters on Air Force One after leaving China on Friday that he had discussed the weapons package with China’s president, Xi Jinping, during their summit this past week in Beijing. He was asked in an interview with Fox News whether he would approve the Taiwan deal.
“No, I’m holding that in abeyance and it depends on China,” he said in the interview, which was recorded in Beijing but aired after he left. “It depends.”
“It’s a very good negotiating chip for us, frankly,” he said. “It’s a lot of weapons.”
He did not go into details about what he wanted in return, but Mr. Trump has pushed China to make major purchases of American airplanes, ethanol, soybeans, beef and sorghum.
It’s not working, dumbass. Just sign off on the sale. Assuming we still have the weapons to sell and haven’t burned them out in Iran already.
