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Musicmystery -> China "wins" as Trump plays himself (or sells us out) (6/5/2017 9:56:41 AM)
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Despite campaign promises that he would out-fox China, Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement has done just the opposite.
As America pulls out of the climate deal, China is poised to go in for the kill. According to this article from Vox, the U.S.’s absence from the climate deal will create a gap in trade opportunities and a green energy economy just waiting to be snapped up by China.
While Merkel’s recent speech foreshadowed a distancing of Europe from America, she later said "the cooperation of the European Union with China in this area will play a crucial role, especially in regards to new technologies,” clearly suggesting a strengthening alliance between Europe and China.
Furthermore, China is poised to take the lead in sustainable energy, an economy that Trump has basically put off limits for America.
In Trump terms- we won’t be winning against China.
It isn’t the first time Trump — who spent the campaign demonizing China — will have wound up giving Beijing a major chance to expand its standing on the world stage.
After Trump withdrew the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, China inserted itself into trade talks among other nations disappointed by America’s reversal. As Canada and Mexico have felt spurned by Trump during the runup to renegotiating NAFTA, China has emerged as a more reliable trading prospect.
This isn’t happening quietly behind the scenes: At China’s first appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Chinese President Xi Jinping chided the West for its flirtation with protectionism, and painted a picture of his country as a paragon of free trade and an inviting place for foreign investment.
“While the US is breaking these ties, China — which has traditionally been more reserved in international affairs — is building them at breakneck pace,” Alex Wang, an environmental law professor at the University of California Los Angeles, told me. “As the US loses good will, China is building it.”
The reshuffling of the world order in the wake of Trump’s announcement could be seen almost immediately, with top Chinese and European leaders criticizing the US’s withdrawal side by side on Thursday.
Standing next to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said that “fighting climate change is a global consensus” and pledged that China would remain committed to the Paris agreement.
In a statement to the press, Miguel Arias Cañete, the European Union commissioner on climate action and energy, made the point even more forcefully: "No one should be left behind, but the EU and China have decided to move forward. Our successful cooperation on issues like emissions trading and clean technologies are bearing fruit. Now is the time to further strengthen these ties to keep the wheels turning for ambitious global climate action.”
It won’t be the last time that Beijing and Brussels find themselves seeing eye to eye, or that the two sides look past the US and look to work on joint initiatives that don’t involve Washington. And Europe and China’s enhanced cooperation is quite likely to go beyond coordinating on climate change.
China has generally been eager to capitalize on Trump’s protectionist tendencies. In his World Economic Forum speech, Chinese President Xi warned against rising nationalism in the West and defended free trade. This is China lecturing the US and Europe about free trade. China’s economy has liberalized significantly in recent decades, but it’s a country that flagrantly disregards all kinds of global trade rules, from denying market access to foreign companies to subsidizing many of its key industries. But when you have the most powerful politician in the world calling for 45 percent tariffs against other countries, Xi doesn’t look so preposterous.
If there’s one realm where China is set to best the US in the wake of Paris, it’s in developing a sustainable economy. It’s already investing more than the US in clean energy — in 2016, it invested more than $88 billion to the US’s $59 billion — but the gulf between the US and China will grow as the US decides that renewable energy investment isn’t a priority. And it will grow fast.
America First is turning out to be anything but.
https://www.vox.com/world/2017/6/3/15729424/trump-paris-climate-china
Of course, there are all those Chinese trademarks the Trump family businesses got abruptly . . .
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