“The so-called “phase one” trade deal inked in December 2019 by former President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping might have put an end to the spiraling trade war between the two countries, but the agreement did not result in China buying more American goods, as both leaders promised it would. In fact, during the two years covered by the deal, China imported fewer American goods than before the trade war began—meaning that the deal did not even succeed at patching up the damage caused by Trump’s bellicose trade policies.”
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“We now know that the promised benefits did not materialize. But the costs certainly keep adding up. Auto manufacturers, for example, shifted supply chains to avoid the cost of tariffs and economic uncertainty created by the trade war—by relocating some American manufacturing jobs to China, which has become a large and growing market for auto sales. BMW, for example, shifted much of the production of its X3 sport-utility vehicle from Spartanburg, South Carolina, to China after reporting that tariffs had cut the company’s American profits by about $338 million in 2018. The higher costs imposed by the trade war caused Tesla to announce that it was “accelerating construction” of a new plant in Shanghai.
Overall, Bown estimates, exports to China would have been $26 billion higher in 2020 and $39 billion higher in 2021 if not for the impact of the trade war and subsequent trade deal. That doesn’t account for other losses sustained during the trade war, like the increased farm subsidies paid for by American taxpayers and the run-of-the-mill cost increases created by tariffs.
Aside from some positive developments with regard to China’s treatment of intellectual property and financial services, probably the only good thing about Trump’s “phase one” trade deal is that it has now expired.
“President Trump’s trade war and phase one agreement did little to change China’s economic policymaking,” Bown concludes. “Beijing seems intent on becoming more state-centered and less market oriented.””
“Daryl Morey, general manager of the Houston Rockets, tweeted, “Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong.”
Good for him. China crushed freedom in Hong Kong.
But China didn’t like hearing an NBA executive say that. Chinese TV stopped broadcasting Rockets games. The NBA then apparently told its players and front offices to shut up. Morey deleted his tweet and instead tweeted that he “did not intend to cause any offense.”
The NBA itself also apologized to China, saying that they were “disappointed” by Morey’s “inappropriate” tweet. Lebron James called Morey “misinformed.” James Harden said, “We love China.”
“China is able to strong-arm these companies…into actually acquiescing with its ideology,” complains Chen.
That ideology is often grotesque. The U.S. and other countries accuse China of committing genocide against a mostly Muslim minority group, the Uyghurs.
China imprisons them in “reeducation camps.” Leaked satellite footage shows blindfolded men, with their hands tied behind their backs, in what looks like a concentration camp.
“They are forced into slave labor,” says Chen.
A few Uyghurs who escaped say they were tortured.
But although the NBA runs ads that say, “Speak for the people who may not be able to be heard,” it clearly does not want its players, coaches, or executives to say anything about Uyghur genocide.”
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“Hollywood doesn’t care either. The movie Mulan was filmed in the same region where Uyghurs are tortured. In the credits, Disney gave “special thanks” to government departments in Xinjiang, where the abuse occurs.
Fast and Furious 9 actor John Cena, promoting his movie to people in Taiwan, said, “Taiwan is the first country that can watch F9.”
What was wrong with that?
“He had the audacity to allude to the fact that Taiwan was a country,” says Chen, “rather than a territory owned by China.”
I don’t know what China said to Cena or Universal Pictures, but soon Cena was on Chinese social media, groveling to China, saying “sorry” over and over. “I have made a mistake….I really love and respect the Chinese people….I made a mistake,” he pleaded.
Chen calls that pathetic. “I think the Chinese government actually takes a lot of pleasure knowing that they can actually strong-arm individuals and companies into capitulation to its own political ideology.””
“The 2014 penalties were narrower in scope and failed to deter Putin from further land grabs. Now, administration officials say they learned key lessons. Among them: They needed to share more information with the Europeans in advance and to work together on aligning their reaction for maximum impact.
“We were more resistant to doing that in the [Obama] administration, for all the obvious reasons of trying to protect sources and methods,” a senior Treasury official said about intelligence sharing. “But being able to do that, to find a way to get the information to our friends and allies, was critical.”
That strategy was made easier by the fact that Biden administration officials now overseeing sanctions became thoroughly familiar with the nuance of sanctions policy during Russia’s last military campaign and developed extensive relationships with their European counterparts.”
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“The U.S. took pains to carve out Russian energy as much as possible from the punishment, in part because any direct actions focusing on oil could result in higher global prices — and thereby even help the Russians, but also in recognition of Europe’s dependency on Russian oil and gas. U.S. officials also worked with allies and major natural gas producers to ensure that Europe would have adequate energy supplies if Putin decided to cut off shipments that flow through Ukraine.”
“Consider where Trump and Biden stand on three key issue areas the Kremlin cares deeply about: NATO, political leadership in Ukraine and undermining democracy. Under Trump, there was little daylight between Russia and the United States on these issues.
Even as Trump’s vocal criticisms may have inadvertently strengthened the alliance, Trump worked to diminish the influence of NATO, reportedly planning to withdraw from it in his second term. As a candidate, Trump had even remarked that, “Maybe NATO will dissolve, and that’s OK, that’s not the worst thing in the world.”
Trump also broke with longstanding bipartisan support of Ukraine. During the Trump administration’s first year, Volodymyr Zelenskyy was still a showman whose comedy troupe performed patriotic musical numbers with lyrics like “There’s fog over Brussels and frost in Washington” and used a MeToo leitmotif comparing Ukraine’s treatment by Russia and the West to a sexual assault. When Zelenskyy beat an incumbent president in a landslide, Trump actually withheld military aid to Ukraine, sending personal emissaries to Kyiv to try to pressure and undermine Zelenskyy in the eyes of Ukrainians by asking him to “do us a favor, though.”
And both while in office and since leaving it, Trump worked tirelessly to cast doubt on the legitimacy of American elections, going to great yet unsuccessful lengths to find evidence of fraud in the 2020 presidential contest. Trump makes assertions about American elections that echo the Kremlin’s, even reciting a trope about voting by “dead souls” that comes from 19th century Russian literature. At rallies Trump repeats the same claims he made the day of the January 6 attack on the Capitol: “You don’t concede when there’s theft involved.”
The truth is that during his administration, Trump’s policy alignment with Putin advanced the aims of Russia’s political elites, who could imagine that the United States was on their side. Their comfort with Trump was evident from the start; Americans may remember that Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was warmly received in the White House and photographed in the Oval Office, while Russian parliament members toasted Trump’s electoral victory in 2016.
This comfort evaporated with the election of Biden. And for good reason: from the start, the Biden administration has been at odds with Putin on the issues Putin needs to care about to preserve his own rule. After Biden’s election, Russian political elites once again articulated profound, existential anxieties about a renewed United States projecting its power abroad. State television in Russia emphasized the Kremlin will not allow American influence in Ukraine, “regardless of the cost to us, and regardless of the cost to those responsible for it.”
The Biden White House has taken positions opposite those of the Trump administration on NATO. Biden has insisted on principles of state sovereignty, reaffirming and rebuilding the United States’ trans-Atlantic relationships, including strengthening NATO.
Biden took meaningful steps to support Ukraine in defending itself. Far from undermining Ukraine’s democratically elected government, the Biden administration has tried to create roadblocks for the Kremlin by getting inside Putin’s decision cycle, declassifying and broadcasting intelligence about Russia’s plans to attack Ukraine. Biden exhausted diplomatic channels trying to come to a peaceful resolution and worked with allies to prepare a sanctions package in advance of a Russian invasion.
And Biden has worked to protect democracy. Unlike Trump, rather than questioning the integrity of contests his party lost, Biden has spoken forcefully about the close legal scrutiny and fairness of all the 2020 elections. And he has supported congressional efforts to protect the franchise in the United States.
In Trump, Putin had a fellow-traveler. Far from ensuring world peace, the Trump years instead offered Putin a useful pause he utilized to further military readiness and prime the Russian population for a hot war. Earlier this month, the Russian state adopted new standards for mass graves — not because of the coronavirus pandemic in Russia, but for situations that involve “urban destruction.””
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“Far from deterring Putin, Trump did the opposite. Thanks to Trump, Putin was able to take advantage of a period of apparent detente during which Trump actually pursued Putin’s own policies of weakening NATO and democracy and destabilizing the West — leaving Putin free to prepare his war against the free people of Ukraine and their democratically elected government.”
“The logic of mutually assured destruction that defined the Cold War still works, to some degree: Russia’s arsenal makes any direct intervention in Ukraine riskier than any rational American leader could tolerate. In a sense, then, Russia’s nuclear weapons make it less likely that the conflict will kick off World War III.
But in another sense, Russia’s nuclear arsenal also helped create the conditions where Putin’s invasion could happen in the first place.”
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“Russia can be relatively confident that the United States and its allies won’t come to Ukraine’s defense directly, because such a clash carries the threat of nuclear war. This could make Putin more confident that his invasion could succeed.
Putin himself has suggested as much. In his speech declaring war on Wednesday night, he warned that “anyone who would consider interfering from the outside” will “face consequences greater than any you have faced in history” — a thinly veiled threat to nuke the United States or its NATO allies if they dare intervene.”
“It may be easy to forget today that after Russia emerged from the ruins of the Soviet Union, the U.S. and Europe spent years working to integrate it into a new post-Cold War order. Far from triumphalist vengeance (as the Kremlin would have the world believe) the West provided Russia with substantial financial and technical assistance. All European states, including Russia, as well as the United States and Canada signed multiple agreements pledging to uphold key principles, including refraining from the threat or use of force; renouncing any change of borders by force; and affirming the right of all states to choose their own political and economic systems and security alliances.
Notably, Russia signed the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, which guaranteed Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity with the international borders in effect at that time, in exchange for Ukraine giving up the third-largest nuclear stockpile in the world. In 1997, NATO and Russia signed the “Founding Act” establishing a Permanent Joint Council and identifying a number of areas where the western alliance and Russia would work together to strengthen security — an “alliance with the Alliance,” as some of its architects in the Clinton administration put it at the time.
Things started to change in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Russia was not happy with the NATO-led war in Kosovo, nor with President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003. Putin became president of Russia in 2000 and declared his intention to restore Russian greatness. At the time, many Russians and international observers – including some in the Bush administration – welcomed his words. Coming on the heels of a decade of what many saw as wild-west capitalism, corruption, and breakdowns in law and order, Putin seemed poised to make a necessary correction that would strengthen Russian stability and modernization without doing major damage to its democracy.
In hindsight, however, we can see that what Putin meant by Russian greatness was not strengthening the rule of law and building up Russia’s economy and international stature in the world. Upon taking office, he methodically went about rebuilding the Russian military, modernizing and expanding Russia’s nuclear arsenal, reviving and expanding Russian intelligence services and activities. That in itself was not necessarily a problem, except that Putin also started dismantling the nascent Russian democracy: taking control of media outlets, consolidating state industries and undermining opposition to his United Russia party, including by assassination of political opponents. Putin didn’t just tame the oligarchs of the 1990s; he replaced them with his own. He was creating something resembling a Soviet system of Communist Party control, just without the Soviet ideology and a personal structure of rule in place of the old Party nomenklatura.
A clue to his thinking came in 2005 when he described the collapse of the Soviet Union as the greatest tragedy of the 20th century. Then, in 2007 at Munich, that shift in rhetoric became unmistakable.
Following the speech, Putin matched his words with actions, dismantling the structures designed to keep peace in post-Cold War Europe. Russia formally announced in July 2007 that it would no longer adhere to the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty. It continued to reject the principle of host-nation consent for its troop presence in Georgia and Moldova, and began ignoring Vienna Convention limits on troop concentrations, exercises and transparency.
In 2008, Russia invaded Georgia, trading its peacekeepers in the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia for regular military personnel, and driving tanks toward the capital, Tbilisi. Six years later, Russian operatives took over Crimea and rapidly orchestrated its illegal annexation by Russia. Russia followed up with attacks in eastern Ukraine and continues to engage in low-intensity fighting and to occupy parts of Donbas to this day. Later, Russia violated the INF Treaty and began to deny overflights requested under the Open Skies Treaty.”
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“we must understand what Putin has been openly telling us. This requires recognizing that the playbook created in the 1990s, fitting and well-intentioned as it was at the time, needs to be replaced with a new approach that treats Putin’s Russia as a threat to peace and an adversary. And we must sustain such a new approach for as long as Putin remains in power.”
““You have to understand, George. Ukraine is not even a country.”
Those were the jarring — and, it would turn out, prescient — words uttered by Russian strongman Vladimir Putin in 2008, during a meeting with then-President George W. Bush. It was an unambiguous assertion of ownership over a sovereign nation, an assertion that has particular resonance 14 years later, as Putin has just recognized the independence of two Ukrainian regions and sent troops to bolster Russian-backed separatists.”
“The latest package would issue sanctions on two major Russian banks and on the country’s sovereign debt, meaning it can no longer raise money from the West and trade new debt on U.S. or European markets, the president said. Starting tomorrow, the U.S. will also impose sanctions on Russian elites and their family members, he added.
Biden called the moves “the first tranche” of punitive measures the U.S. is prepared to take, and he said they would go far beyond the steps the U.S. and its allies took in response to Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014.
“This is a flagrant violation of international law, and it demands a firm response from the international community,” he said of Putin’s decision to send Russian forces into the territories.
Biden also said the U.S. would continue to provide defensive assistance to Ukraine in the meantime, and said he has authorized additional movements of U.S. forces and equipment already stationed in Europe “to strengthen our Baltic allies — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.””