Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Biden’s Foreign Policy Pillar is Looking Hollow at Best

Tags

alliances, allies, Beijing Olympics, Biden, China, Emmanuel Macron, European Union, France, Fumio Kishida, Germany, Japan, multilateralism, NATO, Nordstream 2, North Atlantic treaty Organization, Olympic boycott, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Putin, Russia, sanctions, Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Winter Olympics

What’s worse than “terrible”? It’s an important question because if that’s a term that accurately describes President Biden’s last week or so in office, then something even stronger is clearly needed for the setbacks suffered recently by multilateralism – the foundation of his foreign policy. And most troublingly, the idea that U.S. foreign policy success requires the cooperation of major allies has been failing most conspicuously when it comes to dealing with America’s two biggest global rivals – Russia and China.

Let’s deal with Russia first, but not because I view it as the biggest threat to the United States – or even much of a threat at all. In fact, I’ve long and repeatedly written that the fate of Ukraine has no importance for America’s national security, and that Washington should accept some form of the kind of spheres of influence-type deal in Eastern Europe that Russian leader Vladimir Putin has proposed.

But the Ukraine crisis is making the most headlines right now, the subject dominated his long press conference last Wednesday, and Mr. Biden is nowhere near taking my advice. Indeed, that presser added powerfully to the evidence that the United States and its allies are deeply divided over how to respond to actual and possible Russian moves against Ukraine.

As the President made clear, “[I]t’s very important that we keep everyone in NATO on the same page.  And that’s what I’m spending a lot of time doing.  And there are differences.  There are differences in NATO as to what countries are willing to do depending on what happens — the degree to which they’re able to go.”

Indeed, that very day, France’s President Emmanuel Macron proposed that the European Union seek separate from U.S. efforts a new security agreement with Russia. Macron did state that “It is good that Europeans and the United States coordinate” but added “it is necessary that Europeans conduct their own dialogue, We must put together a joint proposal, a joint vision, a new security and stability order for Europe.”

Since Europe is a lot closer to Russia and Ukraine that the United States, and will be much more dramatically affected by events in that region, this French position seems entirely legitimate to me. At the same time, it’s tough to believe that Macron would place such importance on a Europe-only effort if he was completely happy with what he knows of American diplomacy so far.

Germany’s views seem even farther from Washington’s. Its new government has not only refused to join some other European countries (notably, the United Kingdom) in supplying defensive weapons to Ukraine. It’s blocked at least one NATO country – Estonia – from sending its own Made in Germany arms to bolster Kiev’s military.

Moreover, trade-dependent Germany, whose trade with Russia in energy and other goods is substantial, doesn’t even seem very keen on deterring or punishing Moscow for invading Ukraine with the kinds of sanctions that are widely viewed as the strongest – cutting Russia off from the global network used by almost all the world’s financial institutions to send money across borders for all the reasons that money is sent across borders. At least Berlin is sounding more open to halting final approval of the Nordstream 2 natural gas pipeline if Ukraine is invaded.    

Asian countries seem more prepared to resist aggression from China, especially the military kind (as opposed to Beijing’s economic efforts at intimidation). Since this post last September reporting on steps they’ve taken to transition from U.S. protectorates to countries more closely resembling genuine allies, some have made even more encouraging moves.

For example, Indonesia reportedly “is preparing itself militarily” to deal with Chinese moves against islands located in its territorial waters and major straits through which much of its (and the world’s commercial shipping) travels. The Philippines – another Southeast Asian country embroiled in maritimes disputes with China, has just bought cruise missiles from India, and reportedly some of its neighbors are interested in these devices, too.

At the same time, despite a virtual summit between President Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Japan’s policy on using its forces to help any U.S. attempt to defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack remains ambivalent at best. South Korea looks more hesistant still.

Nor is Japan backing the United States to the hilt on sanctioning Russia economically following a Ukraine attack, or even close. After the Biden-Kishida session, an anonymous U.S. official said (in a briefing posted on the White House website) that although the Japanese leader “made it clear his country would be ‘fully behind’” Washington on the issue, his response concerning economic responses Tokyo would support was “We did not get into the specifics about possible steps that would be taken in the event that we see these [potential Russian] actions transpire.”

The refusal of so many U.S. allies and others to join the Biden administration’s diplomatic boycott versus the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing also casts major doubts on the President’s emphasis on multilateralism. Can any countries declining even to keep their officials alone out of China for the games (as opposed to their athletes) be counted on to push back more concretely and powerfully against future provocations from China?

Athletes and sports fans know well the expression “Change a losing game.”  For all you others, it means that if a strategy or approach is failing, switch to an alternative.  But for the future of American foreign policy, the most important part of it remains unspoken, and the one that the President needs most urgently to heed:  “Change it before you’ve lost.”   

 

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Time for a Nuclear-Armed Taiwan?

Tags

alliances, allies, Asia, China, East Asia, geopolitics, Indo-Pacific, Japan, national interests, national security, nuclear proliferation, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Porcupine Theory, semiconductors, South Korea, Taiwan, vital interests

Since early in the nuclear age, students of international relations scholar from time to time have advanced a dramatically heretical idea: that a world in which more than a few countries possessed nuclear weapons would be safer than a world in which such arms were limited to those countries that already had them. The  reasoning: Attacking nuclear-armed countries is a lot riskier for the aggressor than attacking non-nuclear countries, so the risk of wars breaking out would fall. If you think about the success of the little mammal with big quills, you can see why this notion has become known as the “Porcupine Theory”.

I bring up the subject because I increasingly find myself wondering whether encouraging Taiwan to build a nuclear arsenal would be the best way for the United States to safeguard interests in the island’s independence that have become vital recently because Taiwan has become the world leader in manufacturing advanced semiconductors – which are so crucial to the national security and prosperity of every country, including the now lagging United States.

There can’t be any doubt that the burgeoning importance of Taiwan’s independence and the apparently burgeoning determination of China to reestablish control over what it views as a renegade province, have produced a situation that’s increasingly dangerous for the United States. China, after all, is a power whose conventional military forces may now be strong enough to defeat America’s if it decides to help Taiwan fight off a Beijing attack.

In principle, Washington could resolve to turn the tide by using its own weapons of mass destruction in a battle for Taiwan. But China’s own arsenal is now so powerful that the result could be a full-scale nuclear exchange that brings disaster to the U.S. homeland. In other words, as I’ve written for years, America arguably has lost escalation dominance in Asia, and may have no choice but to acquiesce in China’s takeover of the island and its world class tech capabilities.

Nonetheless, this dire threat so far hasn’t deterred U.S. leaders from moving closer to declaring their intent to defend Taiwan militarily (notably, e.g., as reported here), and ending the posture of “strategic ambiguity” that has so far helped keep the peace in the region. So no one can responsibly rule out push coming to shove in this intensifying crisis.

To date, the United States has opposed countries like Taiwan from crossing the nuclear weapons threshhold mainly because Washington has rejected the Porcupine Theory. In addition, however, this anti-proliferation stance, especially toward allies and quasi-allies like Taiwan, has stemmed from the nuclear weapons parity that the United States enjoyed vis-a-vis the old Soviet Union and today toward Russia, and the overwhelming superiority of its nuclear forces versus those of China and North Korea in Asia. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, the Asian nuclear balance has deteriorated from the U.S. standpoint.

The United States has also always viewed its security alliances with Germany and Japan in particular to be essential to preventing their reversion to the disastrously militaristic ways of the 1930s and 1940s. Nuclear weapons controlled by these two countries were therefore completely out of the question. (Interestingly, a revealing difference of opinion between then President Barack Obama and then presidential candidate Donald Trump was sparked by these issues in 2016.)    

Reliability concerns, however, have also dominated Washington’s position on nuclear weapons spread outside the U.S. alliance network. Specifically, American leaders have always worried about these devices being acquired by unstable governments (which supposedly are less capable of securing them against terrorists and other extremists) and so-called rogue states (which supposedly would be more likely to use them or threaten their use).

A nuclear-armed Taiwan could resolve the prime dilemma for the United States by letting it off the hook for the island’s defense. After all, if China hasn’t yet pulled the trigger on a Taiwan without nukes, it makes sense to believe that it would be much less likely to attack the island if a conflict could bring Taiwanese nuclear warheads falling on Chinese soil.

It’s true that, as I’ve heard various observers argue, that the semiconductor problem may be exaggerated – because, for example, the United States could keep the relevant technology out of Chinese hands by bombing the factories and labs. In theory, the Taiwanese may have plans to blow up these facilities themselves. But it’s also true that these speculations could be way too optimistic – especially since the most crucial knowhow resides in the heads of Taiwanese scientists and engineers, who would need to be protected somehow against a Chinese roundup.

An American endorsement of a nuclear Taiwan could also bring benefits throughout Asia, signaling to Beijing that continuing its bellicose behavior could convince the United States to give a nuclear green light to Japan and South Korea.

Moreover, the longstanding main U.S. anti-proliferation rationales look a lot weaker today. Taiwan is clearly neither a rogue state nor a country with an unstable government. Ditto for Japan and South Korea, for that matter. Besides, precisely because of the weakening U.S. military position in East Asia, and consequently growing worries about Washington’s willingness to make good on its nuclear commitments, many observers believe that all three countries are already latent nuclear powers. (See, e.g., here.) That is, they could build nuclear weapons quickly whenever they wished.

Yet encouraging Taiwan to go nuclear would hardly be risk-free. If and when openly announced, it could spur the Chinese to attack – to enable them to capture the island before its nuclear-ization was completed. A nuclear Taiwan would also be less deferential to American wishes. In fact, its semiconductor superiority has already enabled it to resist some U.S. demands related to plans for increasing microchip production and supply chain security cooperation between the two countries. (The same has held for South Korea, as reported in the linked article immediately above.)

More broadly, nuclear weapons acquisition by Japan and South Korea would certainly undermine America’s post-World War II status as kingpin of East Asia, and all the benefits it ostensibly creates for Americans in one of the world’s most economically important regions.

But even if those benefits were nearly as great as widely believed (and continuing U.S. difficulty opening Asian markets to American exports makes clear that they haven’t been), a nuclear-armed Taiwan would create much bigger benefits: dramatically reducing the odds that China acquires some of the world’s most important technology, and that the risk of a Chinese nuclear attack on the United States if Beijing resulting from a conflict over Taiwan.

The key, as suggested above, would be supporting nuclearization without provoking all-out Chinese aggression – suggesting that this goal deserves more attention in Washington than it’s receiving these days.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Ukraine Crisis Update

Tags

allies, Antony Blinken, Biden, China, Germany, international law, NATO, natural gas, Nord Stream 2, North Atlantic treaty Organization, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, sanctions, spheres of influence, Taiwan, Ukraine

The Russia-Ukraine crisis at this point looks like a good news/bad news story – except as was the case when I posted last on the subject, the bad news still looks more important.

The good news: It’s now clear that President Biden knows how dangerously loony it would be to oppose a Russian invasion of Ukraine or intensification of hybrid war against the former Soviet republic with U.S. military forces.

Last Wednesday, he told reporters that putting “U.S. troops on the ground…in or around Ukraine to stop an invasion” was “not on the table” – at least “right now.” And despite that qualifier, he said three days later that this idea was never “on the table.”

That’s good news because, as I explained a week ago, geography makes Ukraine completely indefensible against Russia with conventional weapons, and largely as a result, it’s all too easy to imagine scenarios in which a President would face heavy pressure to rescue endangered American units with nuclear weapons use, which would almost certainly prompt a similar response by Moscow that could also easily escalate to a full-scale nuclear conflict. Worse, this risk would be run on behalf of a country that was never deemed anywhere remotely resembling a U.S. vital interest even during the Cold War.

Potentially better news: At least according to this Associated Press (AP) report, Mr. Biden is considering accommodating Russia’s stated security concerns about Ukraine and its relationship to the West – to the point of pressing “Ukraine to formally cede a measure of autonomy within its eastern Donbas region, which is now under de facto control by Russia-backed separatists who rose up against Kyiv in 2014” and reportedly telling Ukraine that “NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] membership is unlikely to be approved in the next decade….”

It’s not yet clear whether such steps would be enough to appease Russia – which has demanded a formal guarantee on the NATO issue, among others. And the AP report, which looks like a standard Washington trial balloon, doesn’t exactly square with Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s public insistence yesterday that “One country can’t exert a sphere of influence over others.”

But the evident decision of Biden administration officials to float compromise ideas along with the President’s ruling out of military options at least signals a welcome American awareness that its leverage and stakes in this part of the world are severely limited, and that ringing declarations of support for principles like “international law” and “territorial integrity” can often create more and more serious problems than they solve.

As also mentioned at the start, however, the Ukraine news isn’t all good. My first ongoing concern: President Biden is still talking about responding to an invasion of Ukraine by sending “more American and NATO troops into the [alliance’s] eastern flank…where we have a sacred obligation — to defend [those countries] against any attack by Russia.”

Mr. Biden is correct about U.S. treaty obligations. But as I wrote last week, this move, which could deploy large numbers of western forces very close to large numbers of Russian forces, is also a great recipe for an accidental war that, like a deliberately entered conflict, could go nuclear.

The administration and the U.S. main allies (see, e.g., here) are calling economic sanctions against Russia the main focus of their retaliatory plans, and that’s certainly less dangerous, at least in the short run, than military steps. But for two teasons, that doesn’t mean “completely safe.” First, these economic measures could push Russia and China closer together (as I mentioned last week). And as I didn’t mention, but was worried about nonetheless, such an alliance, or quasi-alliance, creates the possibility of the United States fighting two simultaneous wars against two formidable military powers – over Ukraine and over Taiwan.

It would be comforting to think that the President and his advisors are worried about this prospect, too, and further, recognize that unlike Ukraine, Taiwan’s security has become a U.S. vital interest because of its world leadership in semiconductor manufacturing technology. But even despite Mr. Biden’s reported interest in accommodating important Russia-related Ukraine concerns, I wish I saw more and more public signs of such priority-setting.

Second, I’m not so sure that all of America’s European allies would go along with all or even most of the U.S. sanctions. After all, with the worst of winter still surely on the way, they depend heavily on Russian exports of natural gas. And Germany, in particular, seems determined to increase this reliance ith its involvement in constructing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

Berlin seems to be having second thoughts about this project. But Ukraine has officially accused Germany of blocking some of NATO’s efforts to supply it with weapons supplies. So it’s anyone’s guess where the policy of Germany’s new government is actually headed. And unfortunately, that’s my main conclusion so far about the Biden administration’s approach, too.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Biden’s Anti-China Coalition is Flunking an Olympian Test

Tags

allies, Australia, Beijing Olympics, Biden, boycotts, Canada, China, European Union, Germany, Indo-Pacific, Italy, Japan, multilateralism, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, semiconductors, South Korea, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Winter Olympics

One of President Biden’s main foreign policy aims has been to create an international coalition to resist continually mounting belligerence by China, and to curb the massive, decades-long flows of foreign capital and technological knowhow that have done so much to strengthen and enrich the People’s Republic. And whatever promise is held by this anti-China strategy has become vitally important lately because of Beijing’s intensifying intimidation campaign against Taiwan, whose autonomy has become a vital U.S. interest due to its world leadership in semiconductor manufacturing processes.

That’s why it’s so discouraging to report that, as of this morning, so few of the allies on which Mr. Biden is counting have been willing even to take so limited a step as joining the U.S. diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics scheduled to be held in China’s capital Beijing in February.

Australia and the United Kingdom signed on this morning. And a bit later, so did Canada. But so far, that’s it. According to this Reuters article, Japan is considering not sending cabinet members to the Games but South Korea isn’t even thinking about this step. The New York Times reports that New Zealand had previously decided not to send any officials to China but cited CCP Virus-related health concerns as the reason; that the European Union’s (EU) European Parliament has passed a resolution backing a boycott barring “verifiable improvement” in China’s human rights situation, but one that’s non-binding; that the EU’s separate policymaking arm has declined to support the U.S. action; EU member France is hiding behind this EU skirt so far; fellow EU member Italy has said it’s not on board; and Olaf Scholz, the new leader of another EU member, Germany, clearly doesn’t want to be.

It’s not that joining the American initiative will produce any meaningful changes in China’s behavior. Indeed, official foreign participation in and attendance at Olympics isn’t exactly the norm.

It’s true, moreover, as The Times mentioned, that many of these countries and the EU collectively have imposed human rights sanctions on China; that some have begun thinking about how to shield their economies from Beijing’s power and influence (see, e.g., here and here); and that some have begun to increase their own defense spending in response to China’s own buildup and provocations (see, e.g., here and here), or become more active militarily in the Indo-Pacific region (see, e.g., here).

At the same time, boosting military budgets and even sending warships on port calls and other East Asian missions is a far cry from credibly pledging to come to the U.S.’ and Taiwan’s aid if China moves against the island. (It’s also important to note that an American military response, or at least a prompt one, is far from certain, either, since the United States is not yet obliged by treaty to come to Taiwan’s defense.)

And if countries are reluctant to take even a symbolic step like diplomatically boycotting the Beijing Olympics, which doesn’t even entail further sanctions, can they really be counted on to enter hostilities against China?

President Biden is fond of saying that “America is back” in its role as free world leader following an alleged Trump administration abdication. But leaders by definition need followers, and when it comes to confronting China meaningfully, it’s not clear right now that he has many that are reliable.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Biden’s Dangerously Loose Lips on Nuclear Weapons Policy

Tags

alliances, allies, Baltics, Biden, Biden administration, China, deterrence, globalism, no first use, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, semiconductors, South Korea, Soviet Union, Taiwan, Trump, Ukraine

As usual, headline news is coming so fast and furiously from so many different direections that lots of major developments get neglected (including by me). One of the most important pretty stunningly shows once again that those American leaders who most loudly proclaim themselves to be champions of the globalist approach to foreign policy, and of the U.S. security alliances they view as one of its greatest achievements (both for the United States and the globe at large) have once more been flirting seriously with ideas certain to destroy those alliances.

Specifically, I’m referring to recent reports (e.g., here) that the President Biden is considering endorsing a “no first use” (NFU) policy for America’s nuclear weapons arsenal.

The shift hasn’t yet been approved. A rethink hasn’t even been officially announced. And some of the anonymous sources who leaked this news to reporters (no doubt from inside the Biden administration, and no doubt as a trial balloon) claim that what’s being contemplated is changing to something similar to NFU but not identical to it.

But of course, trial balloons are floated precisely to evoke reactions to something that someone awfully high up in government (or whatever organization is doing the floating) thinks is a swell idea, and who’s confident that his or her boss thinks or would think so, too. Moreover, the difference between NFU and the variant being considered seems pretty academic at best.

Most important about this possible new Biden approach to national security is that it reveals this administration to be every bit as cynical and therefore unserious about the globalism and alliances it pretends to prioritize – and about its indignant and sanctimonious portrayals of the more skeptical views of critics like former President Trump as proof of their dangerous ignorance – as the Obama administration.

For as I explained five years ago when Obama entertained NFU right after slamming Trump literally as a foreign policy and specifically nuclear weapons know-nothing, even mulling such a new nuclear doctrine could undermine the very alliances that globalists like him exalted.

And the reason is simple: First use of nuclear weapons is the policy that for decades has enabled the United States to deter attacks on the allies credibly in the first place – and that has held these arrangements together. For long ago, Washington dismissed as impractical trying to match adversaries like the old Soviet Union, China, and North Korea in conventional forces. The first two could draw on populations that would always exceed America’s, and even when it came to relatively small antagonists like the latter, fielding such forces was considered too expensive to be sustained financially and politically.

Nuclear weapons, however, were relatively cheap, and American leaders judged that declaring their intent to respond to purely conventional attacks on allies by these countries by launching the nukes if non-nuclear forces proved inadequate would put the fear of God even in a nuclear superpower like the Soviet Union. And first use would even more effectively deter countries with tiny or non-existen nuclear forces of their own, like China and North Korea for decades.

Even when Beijing and Pyongyang built nuclear forces big and capable enough to call this U.S. bluff successfully at least in theory (because they could now wreak impressive nuclear destruction on the American homeland, too), American leaders put their trust in NFU. And if indeed protecting allies was the overriding priority of U.S. foreign policy, this judgement was at least defensible.

A NFU policy, though, or even trial balloons, could bring disastrous consequences. Either would risk emboldening the enemies of the United States and its allies by signaling that Washington would at the least hesitate to play its most formidable military card. Just as important, it’s hard to imagine a worst recent time than the present for indulging in such speculation. After all, not only does the United States no longer enjoy overwhelming nuclear edges over China and North Korea. But China and Russia have displayed ever greater interest in establishing or reestablishing effective control over small neighbors like Ukraine and the Baltic states and of course Taiwan.

In addition, a NFU policy or talk thereof could frighten allies into bailing on the United States and cutting the best deals they could with Moscow or Pyongyang or Beijing while they still had the chance. Alternatively, because sizable American forces remain right at or near the front lines at all three of these flashpoints, the absence of a first use policy could result in them getting caught up in unwinnable battles even if a U.S. President wanted to stay on the sidelines.

Finally, when we’re talking about Taiwan, of course, we’re talking about the place that now makes the world’s most advanced semiconductors – products that are central to both future American prosperity and national security. So as is not the case with Russia’s neighbors or even South Korea (an impressive semiconductor manufacturer in its own right), adopting NFU could result in the loss of a genuinely vital U.S. interest.

I’ve long favored fundamental changes in U.S. alliance and overall foreign policy and national security strategy. But that’s not the point here. If you like alliances, it’s really pretty simple: At a minimum, you either keep first use, or you greatly beef up U.S. conventional forces, or you convince the allies to fill whatever non-nuclear military force gaps you face, or you do all three or some combination of them. If you adopt NFU and fail to take offsetting steps on the conventional force front, be ready to kiss these arrangements goodbye.

From all accounts (see, e.g., here) the allies themselves recognize this. So does China. What’s scary is that even if the supposed adults-in-the-room and master strategists in the Biden administration eventually realize the stakes involved (as their Obama predecessors eventually did), they may have greatly undermined the nation’s safety – along with boosting the risks of conflict the world over.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Biden Goes Full Trump on His New Metals Tariff Deal

Tags

allies, aluminum, Biden, Biden administration, China, Donald Trump, EU, European Union, metals, metals tariffs, quotas, steel, steel tariffs, tariff-rate quota, tariffs, Trade, trade wars, transshipment, Trump administration, {What's Left of) Our Economy

I’m old enough to remember when Donald Trump’s decision to tariff steel and aluminum imports from many U.S. allies was almost universally condemned outside his administration as not only unimaginably stupid and economically ignorant (as the supposed case for all tariffs) but downright heinous.

After all: These were U.S. allies that would be paying the price for Trump’s troglodyte protectionism. For decades they’d stood shoulder to shoulder with America in numerous foreign policy crises and showdowns with hostile dictatorships (or at least much of the time) and served as valuable force multipliers (even though their skimpy defense budgets prevented them from providing the United States with much concrete defense help when push came to shove, and needlessly exposed Americans to nuclear war risk). How, moreover, could relying on imported metals from friendly countries endanger U.S. national security – as the Trump administration legally needed to claim in order to slap on the trade curbs. Worse, the Trump metals levies as such left China, by far the biggest metals trade offender, untouched.

Even Trump’s own first Defense Secretary agreed on the tariffs’ cockeyed targeting. So did a fellow named Joe Biden, who during his presidential campaign last year upbraided his opponent for “picking fights with our allies” vowed to “focus on the key contributor to the problem [of a global metals glut] – China’s government.”

So although it’s been telegraphed for some weeks now, it’s still worth noting not only that since his inauguration, President Biden has kept the steel and aluminum tariffs firmly in place, but that his administration has just reached an agreement with the European Union (EU) that makes clear that the two major assumptions that drove Trump’s approach were completely correct.

First, as I’ve demonstrated repeatedly (e.g., here), the evidence is overwhelming both that global metals capacity stems not only from China’s own mammoth overproduction, but from numerous other metals manufacturing countries, and that all of these economies were working in any number of clandestine ways to make sure that most of this overcapacity was dumped into the U.S. market.

That is, they either responded to Chinese product flooding their own markets and threatening their own metals industries by ramping up their own exports to the United States; by modifying these Chinese metals slightly and then sending them state-side as their own products; or by simply permitting Chinese steel and aluminum to be transshipped through their own ports to the United States under false labels.

(This new report shows that China’s strategy of evading U.S. trade barriers has taken another mportant form”: acquiring metals production capacity in third countries – especially in the most profitable, specialty and other high-value metals segments – and using these facilities to ship to America.)

As a result, any U.S. tariffs needed to be universal to be effective – either simply to keep imports under control, or to secure foreign agreement to stop playing footsie with the Chinese. Any other approach would have left Washington continuing to play Uncle Sucker in a game of global whack-a-mole – whose latest round began when direct Chinese exports to the United States were sharply limited by tariffs put in place during the last year of the Obama administration.

Second, the Trump approach recognized that the United States boasted the leverage to achieve success, and the terms of the new agreement with the EU make clear that the former president judged the balance of economic power correctly It’s true that the deal EU saves various American industries from retaliatory tariffs. But in return for restoring these sectors largely unimpeded access to the huge total EU economy, the Europeans have accepted sharply reduced access to American customers.

A U.S. government fact sheet states that tariff-free EU steel and aluminum exports to the United States will be limited to “historically-based” volumes (which have not been specified, but which reportedly will equal only about 60 percent of the immediate pre-Trump tariff totals). Practically all attempted European shipments above that total would be subject to the exact same Trump levies that clearly kept them mostly out of the United States – at least judging from the Europeans’ fundamental complaint. (Trade mavens call such arrangements “tariff-rate quotas.”) In this respect, this EU agreement mirrors those reached by the Trump administration with countries like Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, and South Korea.

The full details of the agreement haven’t yet been released, so questions remain about enforcement mechanisms – which of course matter decisively for any effort to combat secretive activity like transshipment. But because American-owned steel companies and U.S. steel unions have endorsed the deal, chances are they’ll be effective. And that’s likely to be true for the rest of his trade agenda as long as President Biden keeps going full Trump.      

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Lots to Like in Biden’s (Trump-y) China Trade Policy Vision

Tags

allies, Biden, Biden administration, Center for Strategic and International Studies, China, Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, CPTPP, decoupling, Donald Trump, economics, economists, exports, Katherine Tai, managed trade, multilateralism, multinational companies, Phase One, tariffs, U.S. Trade Representative, USTR, Wall Street, World Trade Organization, WTO, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Despite my strong interest in U.S.-China trade issues, I’d originally decided not to post on chief U.S. trade official Katherine Tai’s Monday speech on the Biden administration’s strategy for these challenges for two main reasons. One, her remarks were widely (and reasonably well) covered by major news organizations; and two, the big news they revealed was, as expected (including by me), making clear that the Trump administration’s sweeping and often steep tariffs on Chinese goods would remain in place for the foreseeable future.

Since then, however, the think tank that hosted the event (the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies) has posted not only her presentation as delivered, but the transcript of a lengthy Q&A session that followed. And those exchanges, along with passages from her speech that have received little attention, shed lots of new light on a great many other significantly promising points about the Biden China trade approach that Tai only touched on in her speech, and one-and-a-half points that are still worrisome.

The grounds for encouragement?

First, Tai made an especially forceful and pointed argument that the pre-Trump China trade and broader economic policies (which Biden strongly supported as a Senator and as Barack Obama’s Vice President) had been a major failure. In her prepared text’s words, “For too long, China’s lack of adherence to global trading norms has undercut the prosperity of Americans and others around the world.”

In addition, China’s predatory policies (my term, not hers)

“have reinforced a zero-sum dynamic in the world economy where China’s growth and prosperity come at the expense of workers and economic opportunity here in the U.S. and other market-based democratic economies. And that is why we need to take a new, holistic, and pragmatic approach in our relationship with China that can actually further our strategic and economic objectives for the near term and the long term.”

In other words, after decades of promises and hopes that commerce between the two countries would become a winning proposition for both (as mainstream economists also insisted), the Biden administration has officially declared such interactions to have been win-lose – with the United States and especially its workers the losers.

Indeed, Tai wasn’t even close to being finished horrifying the economic mainstream or the corporate China Lobby. She pointedly refused to call Trump’s January, 2020 Phase One trade deal a “failure,” and declared that even though it “did not meaningfully address the fundamental concerns that we have with China’s trade practices and their harmful impacts on the U.S. economy,” it ”is useful and has had value in stabilizing the relationship.”

In addition, going forward, Tai told her audience that more trade Trump-ism was likely. She indicated that the administration might approve a new Trump-like initiative to impose new tariffs to enforce Phase One more effectively. She also poured decidedly cool water on the idea that the President would move to join a Pacific Basin trade deal (now called the “Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership” or CPTPP) touted as a means of containing China, but nixed by Trump partly because its rules created wide open backdoors for goods with lots of China content.

More broadly, Tai signalled that the United States was now perfectly fine with dispensing with free trade orthodoxy in practice much of the time in favor of “managed trade” – which a questioner defined correctly as “governments setting targets [for exports and imports] and trying to achieve them” and which was embodied in China’s Phase One commitments (not yet satisfied) to boost buys of U.S. imports. ‘

Tai depicted such arrangements as having “evolved out of a frustration with the previous model. [which she described as “let’s seek market access and then, you know, let the chips fall where they may.”] And so the question that I bring to this issue that you’ve presented is not ideologically how do I feel about it, but what is actually going to present results and what is actually going to be effective.”

And she plainly portrayed them in a much more favorable light than the notion of relying on the World Trade Organization (WTO), which trade policy traditionalists have fetishized as the globe’s best hope for creating an international trade system that promoted free and fair competition through a set of detailed rules and regulations, along with a supposedly impartial legal system for resolving disputes.

In Tai’s words, however, “We brought 27 cases against China, including some I litigated myself, and through collaboration with our allies. We secured victories in every case that was decided. Still, even when China changed the specific practices we challenged, it did not change the underlying policies, and meaningful reforms by China remained elusive.”

As a result, Tai said, “as much as we will continue to invest and commit and try to innovate in terms of being a member at the WTO and seeking to bring reform to the WTO…we also need to be agile and to be open-minded and to think outside of the box with respect to how we can be more effective in addressing the concerns that we really have been struggling to address with China on trade.”

In addition,Tai also surely shocked her audience (and yours truly – pleasantly) by openly questioning the decades-long bipartisan push to increase U.S. exports to China:

“I think that part of the story of the U.S.-China trade relationship over these recent few decades has been about this thirst on the part of our business sector in particular for increased market access to China. In business sector I include our agriculture sector, obviously. You know, I think along the traditional lines of the way we’ve thought about trade and how benefits come from trade, it has been very focused on securing market access. I think that what we’ve seen is our traditional approach to trade has run into a lot of realities that are today causing us to open our eyes and think about, is what we’re looking for more liberalized trade and just more trade or are we looking for smarter and more resilient trade?”

With China facing mounting economic troubles due largely to its Ponzi-like real estate housing system and a stagnating population, that’s a valuable warning for American producers who still expect China to keep growing spectacularly and to offer gigantic, ever-expanding new markets for their goods and services.

Nonetheless, Tai specified that the Biden administration isn’t on board with widespread calls to decouple America’s economy from China’s:

“I think that the concern, maybe the question is whether or not the United States and China need to stop trading with each other. I don’t think that’s a realistic outcome in terms of our global economy. I think that the issue perhaps is, what are the goals we’re looking for in a kind of re-coupling? How can we have a trade relationship with China where we are occupying strong and robust positions within the supply chain and that there is a trade that’s happening as opposed to a dependency?”

I understand Tai’s reluctance to embrace decoupling openly. It runs too great a risk of making life in China for U.S. companies doing entirely ordinary, unobjectionable business there even harder than it’s already become, especially lately. But the reference to “re-coupling” struck me as totally unnecessary – and as unrealistic as the notion that Washington is skilled enough to preserve just as many connections to make sure that bilateral commerce does serve mutual legitimate interests, but not so many as to maintain or worsen dangerous dependencies on China, or increase its economic and technological power.

And Tai’s speech lauded the Biden aim of dealing with the China economic and technology challenges in concert with U.S. allies way too enthusiastically. As I’ve written, my prime worry has always been that priotizing this kind of multilateral approach will force the US to accept lowest-common-denominator measures that will always be sorely inadequate because so many of these allies depend so heavily on trading with and investing in China.

Nevertheless, Tai declared that “vitally, we will work closely with our allies and likeminded partners towards building truly fair international trade that enables healthy competition,” and even called this approach “the core of our strategy” on China and trade generally.

As I’ve written, U.S. Trade Representatives are rarely the last word on trade policy. So whatever Tai’s just said, I’m still not ruling out the possibility that the President will use some pretext (promises of climate change progress?) to bring back the bad old days. Certainly, that’s what Wall Street and multinational businesses want. But these Tai observations have made such a U-turn much more difficult politically. And if you agree with my cynical view that politics (mainly due to growing American public hostility toward China) and not principle is what’s produced Mr. Biden’s unexpectedly Trumpy positions toward the People’s Republic, that ain’t bean bag.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Could U.S. Protectorates in Asia Finally Become Real Allies?

Tags

Afghanistan, alliances, allies, Asia, Asia-Pacific, AUKUS, Australia, Biden, China, credibility, Donald Trump, extended deterrence, globalism, Indo-Pacific, Japan, nuclear umbrella, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, semiconductors, South Korea, submarines, Taiwan, transactionalism, United Kingdom, vital interests

Lots of stuff going on lately in security affairs in the Asia-Pacific region (which foreign policy congoscenti have been calling the Indo-Pacific region, reflecting India’s new prominence). And I’m not just talking about the new agreement (which goes by the awkward acronym “AUKUS”) by which Australia will acquire nuclear-powered submarines provided by the United States and the United Kingdom (acing out the furious French in the process), and gain access to lots of advanced militarily-relevant American technology, like artificial intelligence and quantum computing.

I’m also talking about long overdue signs that key U.S. allies in the region are starting to take the threat they face from growing Chinese aggressiveness as seriously as the United States has been taking it. The interesting policy questions are (1) why they seem finally to be waking up and (2) what if anything the United States can or should do to convince Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan in particular to assume more of the burden of defending themselves, thereby enabling America to take a less risky, less costly role in the region.

For the time being, unfortunately, the United States is going to have to stay deeply involved in the defense of these countries, and to keep accepting a degree of nuclear risk that I’ve long described as unacceptable, and still consider unnerving. I’ve changed my mind, however, because the globalist and free trade-happy U.S. foreign policy establishment and the tech companies that write so many of its members’ paychecks boneheadedly let South Korea and especially Taiwan seize global leadership in the manufacture of the world’s most advanced and powerful semiconductors.

These devices are simply too valuable to the American economy as a whole and to its continuing military superiority to take the chance that the relevant Taiwanese and South Korean facilities and knowhow fall into Chinese hands. As for Japan, it continues to produce many of the materials and equipment on which cutting-edge semiconductor production relies, so it’s got to be kept safe from the likeliest threat it faces from China – which is some form of blackmail. (See this recent Biden administration report, and especially pp. 45 ff.)

As a result, until the United States gets its semiconductor act back together, the American nuclear umbrella needs to remain over Japan and South Korea – which means that America could well be sucked into a nuclear war with China and especially North Korea if hostilities break out. And such “extended deterrence” may need to be extended to Taiwan (which Washington is not yet as tightly committed to defend).

That’s why it’s not good that not only the Australians will be getting nuclear-powered (but not – so far – nuclear-armed) submarines. Because of their superior capabilities, these which will add quantitatively and qualitatively to the forces China would need to think about when contemplating, say, moves to increase its sway over the regional sealanes through which so much of the world’s trade flows.

It’s also good that South Korea has decided to build (so far non-nuclear) ballistic missiles that can be launched from its own submarines (in response to North Korea’s progress toward the same capabilities). Deserving of applause as well are Japanese and Taiwanese plans to boost defense spending – and acquire some impressive weapons along the way. Japanese officials are even talking seriously about what steps Tokyo can and should take to help defense Taiwan if the stuff hits the fan with China – although nothing like a clear decision had been made.

Defense spending levels in all three countries are still measly, especially considering what dangerous neighborhoods they live in. And it’s not as if time is necessarily on their side. But something new seems astir, and I’m not convinced that China’s worsened behavior is entirely responsible. Some credit undoubtedly goes to the Trump administration. Since his initial White House campaign, the campaign, the former President insistently asked why Americans should risk their own security for that of allied freeloaders, and foot so much of the bill. And throughout his presidency, he kept so much pressure on that the Asia allies clearly worried that the Uncle Sucker days were over, and that Trump’s complaints reflected much and possibly most American public opinion. (See, e.g., here.)

President Biden deserves some credit here, too – but I would argue in part in spite of himself. Mr. Biden of course is a card-carrying globalist who for the entirety of his long career in public life has agreed wholeheartedly with the need to maintain strong U.S. alliance relationships. Hence it was no surprise that during the 2020 campaign and immediately after his inauguration, he took great pains to assure U.S. allies that the United States would “be back” after years of Trump-ian neglect. And indeed, earlier this year, Mr. Biden showed every sign of coddling continued Asian defense free-riding.

But ironically, the biggest Biden spur to more Asian defense burden-sharing might be his botched withrawal from Afghanistan. In other words, whereas the Asians (and other allies) were worried mainly that Trump would cut them loose because he was unwilling to protect them if they didn’t change their deadbeat ways, it’s entirely possible that they fear Mr. Biden won’t be able to ride to their rescue – at least not in any effective way.

I know that there’s little evidence of such mistrust in official Asian rhetoric so far. And of course, one of the President’s main stated reasons for leaving Afghanistan in the first place was to free up more American energies and resources to focus on China. But some unofficial Asian voices seem less sure, and it would be surprising to see any governments pushing the panic button in almost any circumstances. And could it be a total coincidence that the aforementioned spate of Asian defense decisions came in the wake of the Afghanistan pullout?

I seriously doubt it.  And as a result, if Mr. Biden wants to turn America’s Asian protectorates into genuine allies, he should continue his own strategy of stepping up exports of advanced weapons to them (and to many of their neighbors, depending on each one’s solidarity), signaling his willingness to go even further (as with this excellent decision) and employ some of the Trump-ian “transactionalism” that’s had so many globalists clutching their pearls for so long. 

But instead of threatening American withdrawals if they don’t pony up more defense-wise, the President should promise them more hardware if they do.  Casually floating the idea of OKing the acqusition of nuclear weapons by various allies wouldn’t hurt, either.

And he should stop pretending that none of this activity is directed against China. Not only does such rhetoric signal credibility-shaking skittishness. It contradicts yet another example of transactionalism that should become part of the Biden strategy: Making clear to China that staying on its current belligerent course will be a great way to guarantee that it’s ringed with ever more neighbors that are armed to the teeth.        

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Biden’s Just Blundered on Taiwan, Too

Tags

ABC News, Afghanistan, alliances, allies, Article Five, Biden, China, Cold War, Congress, credibility, George Stephanopoulos, Japan, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Republic of China, semiconductors, South Korea, Taiwan, treaties, vital interests

Last week I tweeted that I was worried that President Biden would do something stupid and reckless to try to establish or reestablish (depending on our viewpoint) his global chops following the Afghanistan military withdrawal his administration has so disastrously conducted. As known by RealityChek regulars, American Presidents have followed this course before – notably John F. Kennedy.

And sure enough, on Wednesday he at least came uncomfortably close. No, Mr. Biden didn’t invade or threaten another country, or even move U.S. military forces into provocative positions versus, say, China or Russia or Iran or North Korea. But he did say something that should worry all Americans. In his interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, the President suggested that Taiwan now enjoys the same status in American eyes as Japan, South Korea, and the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). That is, they’re allies in whose defense against external aggression the United States is treaty-bound to fight.

Specifically, when asked by Stephanopoulos if China could credibly tell the Taiwanese – who they claim run a renegade province that Beijing has vowed to bring back into its fold with force if necessary – “See? You can’t count on the Americans,” Mr. Biden’s response included:

“We have made– kept every [defense] commitment. We made a sacred commitment to Article Five that if in fact anyone were to invade or take action against our NATO allies, we would respond. Same with Japan, same with South Korea, same with– Taiwan. It’s not even comparable to talk about that.”

The President is right about NATO. In fact, that Article Five he mentioned is the keystone of the treaty that established the alliance. In 1949, the signatories agreed

“that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs…will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”

The Japan-U.S. Security Treaty of 1951 contains its own Article Five. The key section:

“Each Party recognizes that an armed attack against either Party in the territories under the administration of Japan would be dangerous to its own peace and safety and declares that it would act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional provisions and processes.”

The promise to meet aggression with U.S. military force is a little looser here – and notice that the treaty creates no Japanese obligation to aid the United States with its own military if American territory comes under attack. The reasons are complicated – for example, in 1947, Japan, then under U.S. military cooperation, adopted a constitution containing a proposal from Supreme Allied Commander General Douglas MacArthur that pledged “never” to “maintain” “land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential.” The idea, of course, was to prevent Japan from ever reemerging as the type of threat it became in the 1930s. And at that point, it wasn’t even a fully sovereign nation, much less an armed one.

Nonetheless, as the Cold War developed, and Washington’s priorities in East Asia shifted toward using any actual and potential assets available to resist communist aggression, the United States proceeded to push Japan to rearm and add to the regional forces that could fight the Soviets or the Chinese or the North Koreans. But even though Japan continuously balked, the United States’ determination to defend Japan could never be seriously doubted as long as tens of thousands of American servicemen were stationed on Japanese soil, representing a “tripwire” whose presence and possible vulnerability to the superior conventional militaries of potential regional aggressors would guarantee an armed U.S. response – poentially complete with the use of nuclear weapons – against an attack on Japan. 

A similar U.S. commitment – complete with unequal obligaions and tripwire forces – has been made to South Korea.

There’s now clearly a case for adopting the same policy toward Taiwan. From 1954 to 1979, the U.S. security relations with Taiwan were governed by a assymetrical defense treaty, too, complete wiith an Article Five American commitment. But since the United States decided to recognize the People’s Republic of China (yes, the Communists) as China’s sole legitimate government, its approach toward Taiwan’s defense has been informally called “strategic ambiguity” – which is just as fuzzy and plastic as it sounds.

Yet whereas that posture arguably made sense for most of the post-1979 period, since the People’s Republic has grown so much stronger and more important economically than Taiwan (which still calls itself the Republic of China), the island can now legitimately claim to boast an asset vital to America’s own national security and prosperity – world leadership in the manufacture of the world’s most advanced and powerful semiconductors.

At the same time, extending Article Five-type status even to a technological powerhouse like Taiwan isn’t a decision to be made on the spur of the moment. The impact on China – which has significantly closed the military gap with the United States especially in its own backyard (where Taiwan is located) – needs to be carefully considered. And more important, it’s a move that the United States can’t make by presidential fiat. Congress needs to approve.

On Thursday, a “senior Biden administration official” told reporters that American “policy with regard to Taiwan has not changed.” And the usual supposed experts and talking heads said that Mr. Biden had simply added to his long record as a “gaffe machine.” But who the heck is this senior official, anyway? Why should anyone believe him or her if they’re not willing to speak for attribution? And why should the Chinese take this walk-back seriously, or take comfort in (unofficial) assurances that the President was just Biden-ing again – especially since “strategic ambiguity” has become a lot bolder under both him and President Trump?

Moreover, if they’re not aware of it already, the Chinese should know that Presidents have used all sorts of ways short of formal treaties to tie the nation militarily to foreign countries, and even to use military force (Google “Tonkin Gulf Resolution,” or “Authorization for Use of Military Force”), and that timely, effective Congressional resistance is anything but a sure thing. That could go double for a national political establishment that today is united by a sense of humiliation due to the Afghanistan debacle – and possibly spoiling for an opportunity to regain global confidence.

Again, I’m not against a treaty commitment to Taiwan. But it needs to be made with full consideration of all the pluses and minuses, and according to clear Constitutional procedures. And it certainly shouldn’t result from an out-of-the-blue comment by a Chief Executive under heavy political fire, however richly deserved.

Making News: Podcast On-Line of National Radio Interview on Biden & China…& More!

Tags

allies, Biden, China, Japan, Making News, Taiwan, tariffs, Ted Galen Carpenter, The John Batchelor Show

I’m pleased to announce that the podcast is now on-line of the podcast of my latest interview on John Batchelor’s nationally syndicated radio show. The segment, which aired last night, can be found here, and focused on the Biden administration’s surprising (to me, anyway) decision to keep in place all of former President Trump’s towering and sweeping tariffs on Chinese goods.

In addition, my good friend (and incisive foreign policy analyst) Ted Galen Carpenter quoted my views on the U.S.-Japan security relationship in this recent blog post. Indeed, Ted’s piece shows that the likelihood of Tokyo helping the U.S. military meaingfully in a shooting war over Taiwan is even dimmer than I had previously written.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.