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Greetings, and welcome to this week’s edition of Receipts.
This latest newsletter is about the parade of foreign leaders suddenly passing through Beijing and hoping to make nice with President Xi Jinping, all because President Donald Trump’s trade wars have pushed them to seek favor with our economic adversaries. Also, a roundup of some of the other recent economic developments that might make foreign leaders and companies wary of doing business here in the United States, such as capping interest rates via tweet. As others have joked: Maybe the real reason Trump captured Maduro was to ask him for economic advice.
Are there other recent examples of countries banding together because of something boneheaded the U.S. government did? Let me know in the comments. And if you’re not already a member of Bulwark+, I hope you’ll consider subscribing. The support of our members helps us track the international fallout of the latest attacks on the rule of law. You can join here:
–Catherine
Trump Is Making China Great Again
America’s friends and trading partners are running into the arms of our adversaries. What a mess.
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SOMEONE ALERT the Norwegian Nobel Committee: Against the odds, Donald Trump has succeeded in peacefully uniting the world.
Unfortunately, the world has been united against us.
This Pax (Ex) Americana era was illustrated Friday, as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney wrapped up a trip to China. This wasn’t just any old visit, either: It marked the first time a Canadian PM had been to the world’s second-largest economy since 2017—and based on the glamorous video Carney’s team released, it was a smashing success for Beijing.
Carney and Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled a “new strategic partnership” between the two countries. Among the key planks of this agreement, China will reduce tariffs on Canadian canola seed, peas, and lobsters. It will also allow visa-free travel for Canadians, who are apparently eager for new tourism destinations.¹ Canada, in turn, will allow 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles into its market at lower tariff rates.
Why is this a big deal? Because the U.S. government had been trying to contain China’s global economic influence. It had been trying to expand U.S. exports. And it had been working to prevent inexpensive Chinese EVs from blowing up the U.S. auto industry. But after a year of bullying, insulting, and threatening to invade our polite northern neighbor, we undermined all those objectives and drove a close friend into the arms of an adversary. After all, Trump declared just this week that Americans “don’t need” any products from Canada, even though the country is our second-largest trading partner.
“We’re forging new partnerships around the world to transform our economy from one that has been reliant on a single trade partner,” Carney² said before his Beijing visit, “to one that is stronger and more resilient to global shocks.”
In short, Trump’s big bet that countries would ultimately determine that they simply can’t live without America’s markets, and thus would cave to his every whim, was dangerously wrong. Instead, Carney’s Beijing visit shows just how much Trump has done to make China great again. In recent weeks and months, China has advanced or rekindled relationships with many of our allies, hosting a parade of foreign leaders.
In early January, for instance, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung visited Beijing. It was the first official visit by a South Korean president since 2019. A few months earlier, Xi had had his first visit to South Korea since 2014. The two countries have now signed more than a dozen agreements across the tech, consumer goods, and supply chain sectors. Lee said he hoped the January summit represented an “opportunity to make 2026 the first year of full-scale restoration of Korea-China relations.”
Additionally, last spring, China, South Korea, and Japan had their first economic dialogue in five years. If you know anything about Chinese–Korean–Japanese national relations—and the mutual mistrust that dates back generations—you’ll realize what an enormous deal all this is.
You’ll also realize how much we must have pissed off our friends to force this outcome.