“The former and future president is a strong believer in using coercion, such as economic sanctions, to pressure other actors.”
Good. Soft power got us nowhere. Hard power is the only power there is on the international stage.
“On China, for example, Trump displayed a recurring willingness to give ground on other issues—the crackdown in Hong Kong, the repression in Xinjiang, the arrest of a senior executive of the Chinese tech company Huawei—in return for a better bilateral trade deal.”
And Joe Biden has been better on this? No he hasn’t. He’s been the same or worse. I agree with some of the criticisms the author levels at Trump and I didn’t vote for Trump but I fail to see how Biden or Harris are meaningfully better than Trump on any of it (and I am inclined to think they might be worse). Other than vague handwaving about the importance of the “liberal international order,” they don’t offer much in the way of solutions.
“The former and future president is a strong believer in using coercion, such as economic sanctions, to pressure other actors.”
Good. Soft power got us nowhere. Hard power is the only power there is on the international stage.
“On China, for example, Trump displayed a recurring willingness to give ground on other issues—the crackdown in Hong Kong, the repression in Xinjiang, the arrest of a senior executive of the Chinese tech company Huawei—in return for a better bilateral trade deal.”
And Joe Biden has been better on this? No he hasn’t. He’s been the same or worse. I agree with some of the criticisms the author levels at Trump and I didn’t vote for Trump but I fail to see how Biden or Harris are meaningfully better than Trump on any of it (and I am inclined to think they might be worse). Other than vague handwaving about the importance of the “liberal international order,” they don’t offer much in the way of solutions.