Look out China and Mexico: How trade shapes Trump’s worldview

China’s large trade surplus is one reason it has been able to extend its influence across Asia and the rest of the world, in ways that have clear national security implications for the United States. 

By Simon Denyer 

President Donald Trump waves after taking the oath of office as his wife, Melania, and daughter Tiffany Trump stand beside him. 

By cozying up to Russia, and in his disdain for NATO, President Trump appears to have flipped decades of U.S. foreign policy thinking on its head. 

It has left many experts puzzled.
But for anyone trying to figure out Trump’s worldview, here’s a really interesting way of looking at things, courtesy of John Robb, who runs the Global Guerrillas blog and is an author and military analyst.
In a nutshell, Robb argues that trade — rather than national security — dominates Trump’s foreign policy thinking, inverting decades of U.S. practice. 

By implication, that makes any country running a large trade surplus with the United States a direct competitor.
If Robb is right, that’s very bad news for China, but it doesn’t make welcome reading for countries such as Mexico, Germany and Japan. 

Unless they can take steps to reduce their trade imbalances with the United States, they are unlikely to be fully trusted by a man who sees trade as a zero-sum game, and sees anyone “beating” the United States as a threat.
First, here’s the analysis, in Robb’s own words:
Since WW2, U.S. foreign policy has been completely dominated by national security policy. 

In fact, it’s hard to imagine a U.S. policy that doesn’t view the world through a militaristic, cold war lens. 

This means that ALL other aspects of foreign policy are conducted in support of (slaved to) national security policy. 

In particular, U.S. trade policy is configured to promote the economic growth of allied nations (originally to fight the Cold War) even if these trade relationships damage U.S. economic performance.
Trump inverts that policy relationship. 

In Trump’s post-Cold War world, U.S. foreign policy will be dominated by trade policy. 

Even national security policy will be subservient to trade policy. 

If trade policy is dominant, we’ll see China, Mexico and Germany become competitors. 

Russia, in contrast will become an ally since it doesn’t pose a trade threat.
So what does this mean in practice? 

China runs by far the largest trade surplus with the United States, some $319 billion in 2016. 

That’s nearly half of the U.S. trade deficit of $666 billion with just one country. 

In fact, China bought just $104 billion in U.S. goods last year, but exported some $423 billion worth of goods to the United States.
No surprise, then, that Trump took less than 10 seconds into the first presidential debate to slam China for devaluing its currency and stealing American jobs.
Trump, of course, has also taken issue with China over its island-building in the South China Sea, and he has publicly questioned American adherence to the one-China policy, the basis for diplomatic relations between the two countries that rules out independence for the island of Taiwan.
But the implication of the trade-first philosophy is that neither Taiwan nor the South China Sea really matters to Trump, except as ways to beat up on a country he sees as a direct economic threat.
Indeed, he has suggested as much, telling Fox News last month that he didn’t know why the United States had to be bound by the one-China policy “unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade.”
The other implication, of course, is that the deterioration in U.S.-China relations is probably here to stay, as long as Trump sticks around in the White House.
Beijing could generate goodwill by moving to open its markets more to foreign goods and investment, and Trump could declare victory if he convinces a manufacturer here and there to relocate to some jobs from Asia to the United States. 

But China’s trade surplus is unlikely to vanish overnight.
Here’s Robb again:
National security under this regime will be used to reinforce and grow positive trade relationships. For example, military tension with China creates the opportunity for sanctions that simulate the function of tariffs (allowing the U.S. to circumvent trade organizations and domestic resistance to tariffs). 

In a national security policy slaved to trade, any and all security guarantees extended to other nations will require a positive trade arrangement with the U.S. 

The U.S. simply won’t protect or extent security guarantees to any nation that has a non-beneficial economic relationship with the U.S. (i.e. runs a trade deficit).
Of course, trade and national security are arguably not either-or choices, but are often interlinked. Indeed, China’s large trade surplus is one reason it has been able to extend its influence across Asia and the rest of the world, in ways that have clear national security implications for the United States. 

Of course, this framework is only one way of looking at Trump’s foreign policy priorities, and it doesn’t explain his hawkish stance over Iran or concern over North Korea’s nuclear program.

But it does help account for his willingness to overturn decades of foreign policy consensus in Washington and undermine alliances that have formed the bedrock of American security since World War II.

Trump has filled his vaunted trade team with China hawks — and we love it

By Allan Smith

President Donald Trump this week filled his lone remaining top trade post with yet another China hawk — much to the delight of trade reformers.
Trump on Tuesday tapped Robert Lighthizer as his choice for US trade representative. 

Lighthizer was the deputy US trade representative under President Ronald Reagan and has been a longtime critic of Chinese trade practices.
The soon-to-be chief US trade negotiator, Lighthizer worked to curb Japanese imports in the 1980s using threats of quotas and tariffs, similar to Trump's threats against American companies looking to import products from China. 

Lighthizer has spent decades as a lawyer representing US steelmakers and other companies in cases that led to a significant reduction in Chinese steel imports.

Lighthizer's appointment joins him with two other prominent China hawks among Trump's team of trade advisers. 

It signals "a return to the Reagan era of unilateral trade policy," Sharyn O'Halloran, a political economics professor at Columbia University, told Business Insider in an email.
In 2010, Lighthizer wrote in testimony to Congress's US-China Economic and Security Review Commission that the trade deficit between the US and China was at the point where it was "widely recognized as a major threat to our economy."
Lighthizer joins Peter Navarro, an economic adviser to Trump's campaign and a fellow outspoken China hawk. 

Trump tapped him to lead a newly formed White House National Trade Council.
Navarro has written books such as "Death by China" and "Crouching Tiger: What China's Militarism Means for the World." 

He too has advocated a more aggressive stance in the economic war with China.
In a release about Lighthizer's appointment, the Trump transition team wrote that Lighthizer, Navarro, and the nominee for commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross — who went to war against Chinese steelmakers in the early 2000s — will work in "close coordination" on trade policy.
Of course, the get-tough-on-China message originates from the top, as Trump has accused China of "raping our country" and being at the head of the greatest "jobs theft" in history.
Trade reformers praised Trump's latest move, with Michael Stumo, the CEO of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, calling Lighthizer and "excellent choice" to replace current US Trade Representative Michael Froman.
The head of Trump's trade transition team, Nucor CEO Dan DiMicco, is on the board of CPA.
"He understands that international trade is a strategic game of conflicting national interests and a competition for good jobs and industries," Stumo said in a statement. 

"America must move past the failed and simplistic Econ 101 trade policy of the past because the results have been an economic carpet bombing of the non-urban areas of the US.
"We are confident that the combination of Lighthizer, Peter Navarro, and Wilbur Ross will be effective in working to balance trade, achieving net creation of good jobs, and growing a diverse manufacturing supply chains here."
Lori Wallach, the director and founder of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, also praised Lighthizer's appointment.
"Lighthizer is very knowledgeable about both technical trade policy and the ways of Washington, but what sets him aside among high-level Republican trade experts is that for decades his views have been shaped by the pragmatic outcomes of trade agreements and policies rather than fealty to any particular ideology or theory," she said in a statement.
Even Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, one of the more liberal members of the legislative body and fellow trade-reform advocate, said he looked forward to hearing how Lighthizer would pull through on Trump's trade agenda.
"President Trump campaigned on the promise that he would rewrite US trade policy and create more manufacturing jobs," he said in a statement. 

"I look forward to hearing from Mr. Lighthizer how he will accomplish these goals, including withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, renegotiating NAFTA, and resetting the US-China trade relationship."
The core combination of Lighthizer, Navarro, and Ross view trade as being a "zero-sum game about winners and losers," said Joshua Meltzer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute.
He said it remains to be seen how the ideology plays out in governance, but added that he expects "a fairly aggressive trade policy coming out of the Trump administration."
Meltzer said views in Beijing are mixed about how Trump and his top trade team would affect relations between the two countries.
"I think on the one hand there's been a view in Beijing for a while now that Trump's a businessman who does deals and that this will open up opportunities to make progress in some areas that are important to Beijing," he said. 

"That may not have been possible under a [Hillary] Clinton presidency. I think they see Trump as very transactional."
But "at the same time now there is a growing appreciation that the Trump administration is going to present a whole range of challenges to China, from currency through to investment and market access and the like," he continued. 

"So I think they are trying to assess how bad this is going to get, how far he's willing to take this."