As the U.S. Alienates Old "Friends", China Is Ready To Reap the Benefits --- President Trump's erratic and aggressive foreign policy gives Beijing the chance to portray itself as a pillar of global stability

"In 1999, French foreign minister Hubert Vedrine noted that the U.S. had achieved a degree of power unrivaled by any country in history. America possessed unmatched military might. It commanded the world economy. Even more important, Vedrine added, was America's global soft power -- "domination of the mindsets, of concepts, of language, of the way of life."

That apex moment didn't last long. The 2003 occupation of Iraq showed the limits of America's military endurance, and the 2008 financial crisis laid bare the fragility of its financial system.

Now the U.S.'s global primacy is facing its greatest challenge yet, as President Trump destabilizes military alliances, unleashes a trade war on the entire world and unilaterally dismantles key instruments of soft power like foreign aid.

This upheaval has created an opportunity for an ascendant China, which has long sought to contest Washington's central place in the world order. Beijing is portraying itself as a pillar of stability at a time when Washington's behavior is increasingly unpredictable, if not outright erratic. "The Chinese are trying to establish their own global pre-eminence, and Trump has just made it easier for the Chinese to achieve their wider ambitions in spite of the economic damage that is being inflicted on China," said Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London.

A sense that the U.S. and its democratic allies shared common values long prevented China from making such inroads. Now that Trump is seeking a rapprochement with Russia while making threats to annex Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal, that essential bond is vanishing fast.

"Trump doesn't share the values that we have shared with every single one of his predecessors, Republican or Democrat, for over 80 years. And he doesn't even pretend to share them," said Australia's former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Opinion polls in many European nations show that the U.S. is no longer perceived as an ally, or even a friend. Vice President JD Vance has said that President Trump "doesn't care about what the Europeans scream at us. He cares about putting the interests of America's citizens first."

Beijing's message amid this crisis is that China represents the best hope for "win-win cooperation" and global prosperity, in contrast with what the Chinese foreign ministry calls America's "unilateral bullying practice." Countries around the world are skeptical of the Chinese Communist Party's intentions, but the language of respectful cooperation is far more appealing than Washington's demands to pay tribute.

"China will continue to do the right thing. It wants to tell the whole world that trade is the enabler of mankind as a whole, and that each country needs to come up with its own way of development," said Victor Gao, vice president of the Center for China and Globalization think-tank in Beijing. "Nobody wants to marginalize the U.S., but it is the U.S. that is cutting itself from the rest of the world now."

Faced with a market rout, Trump on Wednesday paused some of his tariffs for 90 days pending negotiations. A new 10% import duty remains in place for virtually all nations except China, now facing a stunning 145%.

Worsening relations between America and its allies, some of which faced the stiffest tariffs under Trump's initial order, are already having a real effect. Amid tales of harassment and detention by U.S. immigration authorities, overseas arrivals at American airports slumped 11.6% in March. Universities, long a major source of America's global influence, are suffering too, just as government funding for research is being slashed. The U.S. has been losing market share in international education for years, and the Trump administration's move to suddenly cancel thousands of student visas is steering foreign applicants to more welcoming destinations, such as the U.K., Canada and Australia.

"It certainly sends a message that maybe it's not safe to come to the United States if your status is apparently subject to capricious and arbitrary changes by the government," said Clay Harmon, executive director of the Association of International Enrollment Management, an industry group that promotes American universities to foreign students.

As the U.S. turns inward, Beijing doesn't seek to replicate Washington's global system of alliances. In part, Chinese analysts say, that's because it has learned from the mistakes of American overextension.

"The space for China is certainly bigger now, but China will try to fulfill its responsibilities in its own way, in a gradual manner. It's not about filling the vacuum because if you try to fill in the vacuum, you fall into traps," said retired People's Liberation Army senior colonel Zhou Bo, a senior fellow at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

China is already the biggest trade partner for the majority of the world's nations.

Last December, Beijing eliminated tariffs on imports from the world's 43 least-developed countries, including 33 in Africa.

By contrast, some of the steepest tariffs initially imposed by Trump targeted some of the poorest African states, such as Madagascar and Lesotho, which are already reeling from the sudden halt of USAID-funded programs in public health, nutrition and education.

"It's a colossal mess. The collateral damage of this trade war is going to be felt more in Africa than most other places," said Kola Karim, one of Nigeria's top entrepreneurs and chairman of the Shoreline Group conglomerate. "Who is going to listen to America in a year's time if there is a conflict on the continent? If you are cutting all this, you are sending a message: You don't care."

Minerals, ports and sea lanes in Africa, as well as other parts of the world hit by the cutoff in American aid and new tariffs, are crucial for the global competition between the U.S. and China. Gen. Michael Langley, the head of U.S. Africa Command, testified at a recent Senate hearing that Beijing is already beginning to replace the U.S. in some critical projects that used to be funded by USAID. "Those capabilities are needed for the U.S. to maintain a strategic advantage over the Chinese Communist Party," he warned.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the U.S. needed to reduce humanitarian assistance in Africa and elsewhere because "we're not the government of the world" and American resources are limited. He added that other rich nations, including China and India, should pick up the tab for this aid.

Beijing has little desire to open its pocketbooks on a large scale, said Hal Brands, a professor of global affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a former senior Pentagon official. "But they are going to make diplomatic money out of this," he said, "by posing as the country that is really interested in the development of the global south."

That messaging will be easier because the Trump administration is dismantling U.S. radio and TV networks that compete with official Chinese and Russian information, such as Radio Free Asia, which played a critical role in uncovering the persecution of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. Some 75% of its staff have already been furloughed, and it no longer transmits in Mandarin.

"We were shining a light into the dark corners and challenged the narrative that the Chinese Communist Party provides to its citizens and the rest of the world," said Bay Fang, the broadcaster's president and CEO. "Now they are celebrating our defunding, because their biggest fear is that their people see the truth."

While U.S. allies in Asia and Europe won't necessarily run into China's arms as a result of Trump's policies, America's new zero-sum approach to the world -- combined with haphazard policymaking -- is already causing many of them to hedge their bets.

"The more we go down the path of upsetting the international order, and in particular our allies and partners, the more they are going to have to try to find alternatives," said Derek Grossman, professor of public policy at the RAND School of Public Policy and a former U.S. intelligence official. "And there really are very few alternatives, with China being the main one."" [1]

Trump is right, America's so-called "friends" are parasites, sucking America's money and talking sweet talk. Every bureaucratic structure tends to expand endlessly, because each bureaucrat needs more subordinates to demonstrate greater power. This growth needs to be purged from time to time, what Trump is doing.

Trump “cares about putting the interests of his country’s citizens first.” Ultimately, the leaders of Lithuania and the rest of the EU will have to care about that too. Otherwise, voters will throw them out of the borscht. 

  
1. REVIEW --- As the U.S. Alienates Old Friends, China Is Ready To Reap the Benefits --- President Trump's erratic and aggressive foreign policy gives Beijing the chance to portray itself as a pillar of global stability. Trofimov, Yaroslav.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 12 Apr 2025: C4.