Opinion | A new approach to a new Trump administration

By Tom Fowdy

The re-election of Donald Trump as President of the United States has sent shockwaves throughout the world. A man who was once believed to be "finished" in the eyes of the mainstream media at the beginning of 2021 staged an epic political comeback and naturally will set us on the route of four more years of unpredictability and uncertainty, right?

It's easy to assume such an outcome owing to Trump's personal nature, yet such a pattern of thought would require the belief that the Biden Administration was something "normal" or "acceptable" in contrast to the purportedly erratic nature of the incoming president. I ultimately cannot say that is true. In fact, even for all the problems Trump will inevitably cause in US-China relations, I can only say that I am glad to see them go.

The Biden Administration was without a doubt one of the most underwhelming, disappointing, and yet destabilizing presidencies in modern times. I initially had high hopes for them, but those high hopes were premised on a fundamental misunderstanding of American politics which was fuelled by an unending campaign of mass hysteria, negativity, and nitpicking pertaining to all things Donald Trump. Although I strongly continue to despise the NeoConservatives in his previous administration such as Mike Pompeo and Matthew Pottinger for obvious reasons, I realize now I made the mistake of riding on media negativity against the president in the false hope everything would somehow be vindicated after he left office and things would "return" to normal as if his whole Presidency was as it was made out to be, an abrogation of the norm, a simple mistake that would be corrected, and thus his successor would "not be unhinged."

But far from such a correction, we got a Biden Administration that not only embraced his legacy policies, yet ultimately escalated them on all fronts to a whole new level and pursued a far, far more aggressive foreign policy that actively enabled the two largest wars of the 21st century. Sure, there was no "media circus" surrounding Biden, no abrasive comments, so-called callous or undignified behavior, comical infighting, or entourage of threats, yet what he ultimately did in practice was much worse. Trump was a simple, transactional-based unilateralist and his China policy was truly not unhinged until COVID sent things off the cliff and empowered the likes of Pompeo to run riot. Other than that, he liked to compromise and negotiate and ultimately expressed his wishes to engage in a "stage two" trade deal with Beijing before the pandemic came along.

Biden on the other hand, pursued a NeoConservative-orientated foreign policy that explicitly eschewed compromise at ALL costs. While already Trump has spoken to Putin, Biden happily allowed the standoff over Ukraine to escalate into a full-blown war which soon transformed into a fanatical dream to try and crush Russia. Similarly, he did not attempt to negotiate any concessions with China and binned attempting to talk to Kim Jong Un. Because of this approach, every single geopolitical issue on the planet has got visibly worse. It is almost as if my own Trump derangement, as well as my own contempt of Mike Pompeo, are what blinded me from realizing this.

Because of this, I am advocating a completely new approach for the Trump administration, even as they continue to antagonize China. That approach is: Trump can be negotiated with, and likes to make deals and compromise; therefore, one should avoid opposing and crusading against him. Instead, China should seek to deliver the economic concessions the President is looking for, even if he escalates tariffs to 60%. It is politically advantageous to China to allow Trump to proclaim "wins" to shift the balance of power towards those who seek to co-exist with Beijing, diminishing the "China threat" narrative and sidelining the NeoConservatives. This is critical to preventing a new Cold War and a global military confrontation.

Even though the gracious news has come that Trump will not be appointing him again, we must not let a new "Mike Pompeo" get his way again, but to do that we need to be more tactical. One of my biggest mistakes was pivoting "left" in pure reaction to Trump and taking the side of left-wingers on every single US domestic issue, again thinking progressives would somehow save the day against him. They did not, I and erroneously built an entire "pro-China" approach around that premise, which failed to change anything and resulted in tremendously negative consequences for himself on a personal level too. Thus, I realize now that Trump, for all his flaws, is not the devil and I was far too willing to fall into the trap of some of the ludicrous smear campaigns waged against him. Ultimately, we don't need an information war against America, we need some very carefully orientated diplomacy in order to navigate an acceptable pathway through this geopolitical conflict and find an acceptable way out, realizing it's not going to happen unless you let him get what he wants.

The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.

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