What is Trump’s plan to contain China in the Indo-Pacific region?
Trump’s return to the White House has brought big winners and losers in the foreign policy arena. While India, Turkey, the Zionist regime, and Saudi Arabia are happy with Trump’s return to power, some international players, such as China, are watching the current developments in Washington with a pessimistic view. In his first term as president, Trump caused great damage to the export sector of Chinese products and goods to the United States by launching a “tariff war” campaign, and at the same time, he tried to limit his rival’s access to new technologies by enacting new laws.
Now, with Trump’s return to power in the White House, there is concern in Beijing that the Republicans, in addition to resuming the trade war with China, will provide the necessary basis for activating geopolitical faults in the environment surrounding this Asian power. The most important possibility of a Washington-Beijing clash is in the Taiwan case. In the rest of this analytical note, we will examine Trump’s possible policy to contain Beijing in the Indo-Pacific region.
Tariff War
Although the foundations of the trade war between Washington and Beijing were laid at the end of Barack Obama’s presidency, the peak of this policy was during the presidency of Donald Trump and then Joe Biden. In this strategy, the United States, aware of the interdependence of the Washington-Beijing economy but with open eyes, has decided to reduce the Chinese’s access to American markets in favor of local businesses at the cost of economic losses.
Despite the high profits of American investment in China, recent US governments have consciously decided to prevent the transfer of capital to this Asian power with lower profits. The scope of US anti-China measures has also extended to the activities of major companies and brands of this emerging power such as “Huawei” and “Tik Tok”. For example, one of the missions of the Biden administration was to prevent the implementation of “5G” development projects in European countries. Also, by appointing “Tik Tok” to the Communist Party of China, representatives of Congress tried to ban the company’s license to operate in the United States.
What is Trump’s plan to contain China in the Indo-Pacific?
During the US-China “trade war”, the Yankees imposed an 18% tariff on 2.6% of China’s GDP, and Beijing, on the other hand, imposed an 11% tariff on 3.6% of GDP. With Trump’s return to power, the Chinese announced a $1.4 trillion financial package for their local governments to counter the Republican trade war.
Such a decision by Beijing shows their high readiness to confront potential threats from the White House. In this economic war, Iran, as one of China’s three main oil suppliers, can have greater power among the power blocs. At the same time, hard-line elements in the Trump cabinet, such as Rabiot and Waltz, will try to target Iranian oil shipments based on the guidelines proposed by the Foundation for Defense of Democracy, and in this way try to force Tehran to change its behavior.
Geopolitical Faults Activated
Donald Trump’s selection of figures such as Marco Rabiot and Mike Waltz has raised concerns among Chinese and even Taiwanese officials that Washington may be planning to activate geopolitical faults in the South China Sea in the next four years. Although during Trump’s first term, the Americans’ main focus was on the “trade war” and increasing the cost of doing business with this Asian country, it seems that Trump’s second term will pose a serious risk of activating geopolitical faults in China’s periphery and the Indo-Pacific region.