Politics, Primacy, and the Crisis of US Foreign Policy

Editor’s Note: On September 17, Van Jackson participated in a talk organized by the New Zealand Fabian Society to discuss how the US presidential campaign pitting Kamala Harris and Tim Walz against Donald Trump and JD Vance represents competing claims to America’s political character that have clear implications for how America relates to the world. These are his remarks, which can also be viewed here.

Everybody wonders how changes in American politics might impact the prospect of World War III, America’s role in the world, the changing logic of trade, financial flows, and industrial policy. Basically, what’s the connection between American politics and the emerging world order such as it is? 

In answer of that question, I want make three points, which I’ll then situate in the context of the US presidential election.

The first point is that America’s current approach to Asia is closer to a primacist grand strategy than to any alternative strategy—and that’s a big deal because the requirements of primacy and the requirements of sustaining peace in this region are incompatible.   

The second point is that it’s not useful and is in fact dangerous to think of great-power competition as a struggle for hegemony or domination—that’s not what’s happening. 

And three, what’s actually happening is an ethnonationalist competition within capitalism. 

And these three points about how we should understand the world situation owe something to American politics. 

Kamala Harris, for her part, has not proposed a different way of seeing China or relating to the world—she’s a bit of a blank slate on foreign policy but she’s also (as far as we’ve seen) a primacist and American exceptionalist. Trump and the MAGA movement are effectively far-right accelerationists on China and are still primacists on foreign policy generally, but they talk about it more nakedly and have different priorities for how to exercise primacy. 

Primacy or Peace

So on the first point—the ongoing American bid to sustain regional primacy is at odds with regional stability. Primacy is a strategy that seeks security in a predatory way—it tries to preserve and prolong an extreme imbalance of power, and it’s single-minded about the threat from so-called great powers.  

And this is a source of regional instability because of how it encourages others—like China—to react. One of the closest things we have to an iron law in international relations (we have no iron laws, for what it’s worth) is the observation that states tend to balance against the strongest power in the system. US strategy tries to defy that historical observation.  

Now, Washington policy elites prefer not to talk openly about primacy—they say “liberal hegemony,” “favorable balance of power,” or “rules-based order.” But I was once a strategist in the Obama administration.  

By definition, in America’s own declassified strategy documents under Trump, under Biden, and actually going back to George HW Bush—and these are all publicly available now—the US seeks preeminence in military, economic, and political life. That comes closer to a grand strategy that scholars call primacy than it does any other kind of strategy.  

And because primacy is structural domination as an end and means of policy, it’s the most perverse way imaginable of trying to uphold peace or stability.  

Peace requires regional cohesion, a level of interdependence and mutuality, and above all it requires military restraint. A child would understand that.  

And yet primacy right now requires the opposite of all that—regional fracture and bloc politics, techno-containment and economic decoupling, it requires military superiority, which in turn requires arms-racing.  This is context within which AUKUS becomes a thing.

Primacy is a zero-sum way of relating to the world that requires keeping others down.  And in our current fallen world, primacy necessarily comes at the expense of peace.  

And for those of us who take our image of America from the long unipolar moment—the late ‘80s through maybe the Obama years—this is hard to come to terms with because we’ve taken for granted that American primacy is always in the background and not especially onerous or dangerous.  

There’s a way in which it’s all we’ve ever known—we have naturalized living with an extreme imbalance of power that history tells us cannot last forever.  

And so we should start by acknowledging that whether a strategy is good depends on context.  What primacy causes the US to do depends on the circumstances.  

At the end of the Cold War, the circumstances were that we inherited this extremely lopsided imbalance of power.  Primacy was the default that said “We’ll just preserve what we inherited and build a world order around it.” In that context, primacy was not especially costly for the US, and it was not especially risky at the level of global stability because America didn’t have anyone who was capable of challenging it.  

But times change. Technology changes. Distributions of power shift. Political economy has shifted (I’ll talk about that in a minute). And Asia has radically changed since the ‘80s—so much so that now Washington doesn’t even want to call it Asia anymore! They want to call it Indo-Pacific!

What I’m saying is that it was easy to believe that primacy was a global public good when Uncle Sugar had all the power and there were not even imagined alternatives. But that’s not the world we live in now. 

With the exception of Australia and a few right-wing governments, every smaller power in Asia and the Pacific is actively trying to avoid a new Cold War, avoid this thing we call “great-power competition” as much as possible. They’re resisting rivalry and bloc politics in different ways and we can talk about that in Q&A.

But the point is just that a power imbalance favoring America matters because there’s a way in which America’s insistence on primacy is now everybody’s problem—not only because it worsens the many problems that we see when we look at China. But also because it narrows the space of possibility for smaller nations to look after their own interests. 

Rivalry Doesn’t Mean Struggle for Hegemony

So America’s doing primacy, primacy is antithetical to peace.

The second point I wanted to make is that it’s wrong to think of Sino-US rivalry as a struggle for hegemony or domination. But the US is approaching rivalry precisely that way—it’s approaching rivalry as if it’s a struggle for domination. But it shouldn’t be, it’s far from clear that China is seeking the kind of domination that we fear, and China lacks the power to dominate even if it did want to.   

The reason policymakers in Washington think the primacy toolkit (of containment and arms-racing and tariffs) is so essential is because they have this view that America writes rules or China writes the rules. Obama used to say that all the time and we just read it innocently in that moment, but it hits differently now. And this is why policy needs an analysis underneath it, not just vibes. 

China’s material power comes from the privileged position it occupies within the capitalist world-system. China cannot airbrush out the United States without undercutting its own power because the Core of our world system is the US. And even in relative decline, the US still has unique advantages. It’s the first among unequals in a more multipolar world.

So imagining that China could take over the world or displace the US is to imagine China defying the realities of how power is structured.  

But think about it. China’s ability to economically coerce others, its ability to pour resources into the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), its ability to finance infrastructure development in other countries—all of this is dependent on it occupying a particular position in Asian political economy and global production networks. To some extent it even depends on continuing access to the US market.

So because the world-system is structured in this highly networked way, there’s a way in which China’s fate is Asia’s fate, and Asia’s fate is America’s fate. Pretending otherwise is dangerous but it’s also kind of wooly-headed.

So I’m not saying that America doesn’t have conflicts of interest with China—it does. But primacy makes those conflicts worse. It only makes sense if you assume world order has to be run by a single great power and it’s either us or them. And that’s just not true. That’s actually what neofascists like Steve Bannon have been trying to make a self-fulfilling prophecy.  

So if we’re clear-eyed, we should see that China is a problem that holds up a mirror to the problems in our own nations. But it’s also a problem within a world-system that favors America—China’s not some free-floating bad guy who stands outside of world order threatening civilization as we know it.  

China is embedded in global order with us and there’s very good research showing that its ruling regime is satisfied with most aspects of the world as it’s currently structured. 

And I don’t want blow anyone’s mind here, but there are growing signs that both China and the US are in relative decline—and we don’t have a convenient narrative for that alternative future, but it sure as hell isn’t “American hegemony or Chinese hegemony.” 

And even if Sino-US rivalry was about who rules or who dominates, the only sane response to that would be to denaturalize it—take it apart, challenge the premise.  Because a story about great powers battling for domination is a story that won’t end well for most of us.  

Ethnonationalist Competition Within Capitalism

So primacy is antithetical to peace, and China can’t take over the world.  

The third point I wanted to make is that rivalry between the US and China should be understood as an ethnonationalist competition within capitalism.  

So up until the 1970s, advanced economies used to be producerist, manufacturing economies. That became less profitable as manufacturing became more competitive. And as profits fell, investment capital in advanced economies looked for profits through services more than production.  

The era we now call neoliberal globalization has been an era of financialization and de-industrialization in the West. And during my lifetime, manufacturing was never a sign of an advanced economy—because manufacturing was an activity that had shifted from rich countries to the global South in the search for new markets and cheaper labor. And China was a major beneficiary of that process, which is how it became the world’s factory.  

I think most people know that much.  But less obvious is that what we’ve seen over the past half century is that financialization of the economy—neoliberal globalization itself—has had diminishing returns and is unacceptably volatile…especially since 2008.  

We keep ending up in these cycles where investment capital floods into a sector, creates a speculative bubble, and then too much capital chasing too little profit leads to overproduction. Overproduction drops prices, drops profits, and that creates a fiscal crisis.  

So neoliberal globalization is now facing its own crisis of capital accumulation—and we see evidence of that crisis in economic stagnation. Global growth has slowed, and in many places it’s stopped altogether. So the previous economic order isn’t delivering the goods like it used to, but recurring crises also call the order into question politically.  

And you might be wondering, what the hell does all that have to do with foreign policy or World War III. Well, the US, China, and rich nations that can afford it have decided that the answer to an era of low growth is zero-sum economic nationalism. The tide doesn’t lift all boats if the tide isn’t rising.  

So now the US and China have turned to using the power of the state to secure a competitive advantage in strategic sectors of the economy. In fact, China was doing this first and the US decided to emulate China.  

One long-term problem with this is that we’re already overproducing relative to demand in the so-called strategic sectors of the world economy. And looking out five to ten years, we’re actively building toward yet another fiscal crisis, but this time in these strategic sectors—semiconductors, AI, green tech, and military hardware.

But that’s long-term. The more immediate problem is that in order to do state-driven political economy, you end up having to exploit nationalism—use state power to build national power, strengthen yourself and weaken your competitors. But nationalism is a dangerous force. It’s prone to a politics of reaction—it’s inherently exclusionary, it often assumes scarcity, and it becomes a justification for violence. And in the US and China in particular, it’s ethnically charged—it’s ethnonationalism.

In both countries, nationalism has an exceptionalist quality—they both talk and act as if they’re special…as if their behavior is exempt from the rules that everyone else plays by. And when powerful nations do that, it leaves the rest of us in a world where the great powers are competing for a greater share of global growth while that same growth is declining in relative terms. And that relative decline of growth intensifies what starts to look like an inter-imperial competition.   

So great-power exceptionalism is not new but it could co-exist in a high-growth world—it wasn’t a source of WWIII in a high-growth world. We’re not in that world anymore. So what we’re left with is militarism and economic nationalism. And who benefits from that? Not lovers of peace. Not lovers of democracy. And definitely not workers, ironically, given the promises attached to slogans of a foreign policy “for the middle class.”

And a lot of America’s insistence on primacy is a fear that it’ll be excluded from Asia, recognizing that Asia is the future of the global economy. And American elites are convinced that primacy is the only way to ensure their access to Asia.  

This is wrongheaded. Policymakers are thinking about China and America’s role in the world in a fundamentally incorrect way that’s super dangerous but that also justifies some pretty evil behavior. To take just one of many examples, American primacy in the Pacific is built on the back of not just a US sphere of influence there but also sustaining actual formal colonies in the year of our lord 2024. 

But the rest of us don’t have to accept that—we should be able to see clearly that what’s happening is an elite-driven ethnonationalist competition within capitalism. Primacy makes it worse. No great power is gonna save us. And to get at the root of the problem will not involve bombs and bullets—it will involve 1) changing how the great powers relate to each other, and 2) fixing some of the pathologies of our global economic order.  

China and the US Election

But the reason all this matters in the context of the 2024 presidential election is both that US politics has fueled this monster of a situation, but it’s also constrained by it in ways that are not good.  

So Kamala Harris doesn’t bring much foreign policy experience to the table. In 2020, she ran as a progressive, but that was a very popular thing to do in 2020, and she ran as a very mainstream progressive that was trying to look tough on security and appeal to Wall Street’s interests.  

Take that as you will, but she’s not known for taking big risks, doesn’t have a record of challenging the prevailing conventional wisdom. And so personnel is always policy, as they say, but this is likely to be especially the case in a Harris presidency; to a large extent, we should expect that she’ll take her cues from her personnel and the Democratic Party.  

It matters, then, that 99% of the foreign policy staff surrounding her are all from the Biden administration—and they’re a cadre who explicitly believes in American exceptionalism and a strategy of primacy.  

So even though Kamala hasn’t carved out explicit positions on most issues, she’s hawk-leaning/hawk-adjacent on everything so far. She talks about Gaza better than Biden, but she has explicitly said she’s going to keep flowing arms to Israel. She’s explicitly endorsed military superiority, so the trillion-dollar defense budget is going to continue. She supports Bidenomics, which is economic nationalism as part of a strategy to rebuild the middle class on the back of rivalry with China—which, we can talk about this, but that won’t succeed because it’s full of contradictions.   

In her entire foreign policy world, which is dozens of people, there’s only two to three people that you could consider remotely progressive. Tim Walz, on the other hand, her VP, is pretty progressive and does have a more relational view of China—he has a track record opposing this whole Cold War situation we’ve gotten ourselves into.  

So the best hopes for stability in a Kamala presidency depends a bit on whether she makes unconventional staff picks, and to some extent on her Vice President. And that’s unpromising, because vice presidents tend to be pretty ceremonial.  

And yet, as much as Democratic Party thinking about foreign policy is in flux and unpromising, the right-wing, Trumpist version of all of this is not a slow-burn crisis; it’s an urgent crisis.  

MAGA and Trump have laid out all kinds of markers indicating they’re going to be much more confrontational with China even though the Biden admin itself has been more hawkish on China than even the previous Trump administration had been. MAGA has promised to outspend Biden on defense. They have pretty insane and vocal views about nuclear arms-racing.  Republicans see Palestinians the same way Zionists do in Israel—which is mostly as a threat.

There’s a meme out there that MAGA and Trump are isolationists…And that could not be farther from the truth. They’re unilateralists, they’re militarists, they take a ‘clash of civilizations’ view of the world—which is pretty explicitly racialized.  But they’re not isolationist.

And so you could almost understand the Democrat-Republican divide on foreign policy being basically about Democrats wanting to preserve and expand an empire that has cosmopolitan qualities but is an empire all the same…versus Republicans wanting the benefits of a global empire without any of the obligations of maintenance that come with it.  

And so the MAGA movement is looking at war with Iran; war with Mexico; extortion of allies; economic nationalism on steroids; and a reassertion of the Monroe Doctrine that makes the entire Western Hemisphere a formalized American sphere of influence again.  And its real alliances would be white, culturally Christian, right-wing countries like Russia and Hungary. So if MAGA gets its way, they’re going to reimpose something like a global color line.  

And Trump himself makes all of this a little less predictable, and we can talk about that, but his unpredictability is located within these preferences. So presumably Republicans wouldn’t go to war with Mexico and Iran at the same time, but both options are on the table. Trump is happy to stoke Sino-US rivalry and position America to end up in a war with China, but chances are he isn’t going to directly, proactively launch such a war.  

So the commonality here is that America’s policy elites are committed to primacy. They’re fairly locked in to relating to the world in a highly predatory, militarized way. And regardless whether it’s a Democrat or Republican presidency, they’re committed to cannibalizing the existing economic order as part of doing economic nationalism. But one party is a much more immediate threat than the other, and one party offers a more favorable terrain to struggle for peace than the other.

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The Right Way for China and the US to Get Along

From September 12-14, I attended the 2024 Beijing Xiangshan Forum, participating in a panel discussion entitled “The Right Way for China and the United States to Get Along.” These were my opening remarks.

First, I would like to thank the forum for inviting me to participate and speak here today. While I’m here as a member of United States civil society and not a representative of the U.S. government, I will do my best to describe the current state of the policy debates in the United States, and how I think these relate to the question of how the United States and China can get along. 

While many Americans have questions about China’s ultimate goals in the world, I think most American leaders, and most of the American people, understand that the U.S. and China need to find ways to work together. There will be areas of disagreement, sometimes strong disagreement on issues of human rights, privacy, tech and trade, and others. But we can have a multifaceted relationship in which we cooperate, compete, and, when necessary, confront. The key is to keep talking. 

Right now, U.S. foreign policy is in a period of transition between the old era and a yet undefined new one. Donald Trump’s surprise victory in the 2016 U.S. presidential election awakened many in our policy community to the reality that despite Washington’s presumption of an unquestioned foreign policy consensus, many Americans actually had very serious questions about the assumptions that had guided decades of U.S. foreign policy. 

There is no “new Washington consensus”— not yet, at least. There is, instead, a contest for what will be the next paradigm for U.S. foreign policy. There are some who wish to subordinate all other concerns to the imperatives of “great-power competition.” There are others who want the U.S. to pull back to a more restrained role in global affairs. Of course, there remain those who cling to every scrap of the old neoliberal international order and the belief in the necessity of American primacy.

The Biden administration has taken several important steps toward defining a new approach, probably best articulated in an April 2023 speech by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. A global trade policy based on reducing global inequality and economic precarity through equitable trade, labor, and investment rules, could have enormous positive consequences for American workers and communities around the world.

This is part of the logic that undergirds the strong push for U.S. government investment in American manufacturing and infrastructure, in strengthening people’s faith in government by addressing the long-neglected needs of workers and their communities. And this is why I’m addressing a security conference by talking about jobs and the economy – because rebuilding a strong and durable American political consensus is essential for the United States to remain a reliable and effective security partner. 

I think most of the U.S. public understands how diplomacy and cooperation with China can provide benefits for Americans, as evidenced recently when China imposed new controls on fentanyl, which has had a devastating impact on many of our communities and families. There are other steps China can take in the diplomatic realm to be a better partner to the U.S. China showed a willingness to play a brokering role in Iran-Saudi detente, even if that was already baked, and in brokering Palestinian unity, even if that wasn’t baked at all. Playing a constructive role elsewhere would be welcome, particularly as in Russia’s war on Ukraine, where China is unfortunately helping Russia replenish its war machine. 

I think it’s important to note that a positive relationship of cooperation cannot be based on illusions. The U.S. and China can build a more collaborative security order, but unlike the previous global order, it can’t be built on redirecting insecurity toward others–be they ethnic or religious minorities, human rights defenders or political activists, internally or externally. Peace between great powers is only possible if it rests on a foundation of peace within our respective societies. While leaders everywhere exploit the failings of their adversaries for their own political ends, it is a mistake to dismiss these concerns. The American people do genuinely care about human rights, and support a foreign policy that reflects that.

So what should we do?

1) Advance global priorities that break away from an outdated and counterproductive “Great Power Competition” mindset

    The embrace of a “Great Power Competition” worldview with an unquestioned need to “win the future” defines US interests as a zero-sum fight that drains resources and goodwill. Both our countries need to recognize and secure their interests in the reality of a multi-polar world, rather than attempting to forestall it via a costly and ultimately self-defeating effort to disadvantage others. 

    A new approach to defining success in global influence should focus on 1) global public goods like universal public health infrastructure and green energy for all; 2) significantly increasing development investment in those countries and regions that have been starved of capital for decades; and 3) guaranteeing human, political and labor rights globally. Building international cooperation around such a transformation of the global economy would reestablish US–China relations on a new foundation, revive the legitimacy of international norms by expanding the opportunity it offers to people of all countries, and address the truly existential threats we all face today.

    2) Invest in the domestic critical technology workforce, while cooperating on shared challenges like climate change.

      The Biden administration has already taken steps to increase domestic production capacity for technologies critical to the security and economy of the United States, especially advanced technologies and those essential to address dire challenges like climate change. The only true growth trajectory, however, is one anchored in U.S.-China collaboration. The technologies needed to survive, mitigate, and overcome challenges like climate change and global health threats will not be built in one nation, and will require significant investment and cooperation from governments across the world. 

      Both China and the U.S. face tremendous challenges from warming temperatures, particularly in the area of desertification and water security. Exploiting these vulnerabilities elsewhere in the world in the hope that they lead to crisis and instability and strategic opportunity is both immoral and dangerous. Instead, the United States should approach cooperation on addressing urgent climate change imperatives – such as working with China to leverage non debt-creating climate finance investments and provide critical technical assistance to developing countries – as an opportunity to build trust and identify areas of mutual benefit on other issues.

      Developing a stable and constructive relationship between the United States and China will not be easy. But the future peace of the planet requires us to make that choice.


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      Post-CNN Debate: Visions for the World in 2025

      On June 27, CNN held a debate between former president Donald Trump and incumbent president Joe Biden. Both men are in the unique position of running against a previous office holder, and the election itself is a rematch of the socially distanced contest held between the same two candidates in 2020.

      There is arguably no area of governance where a president has greater freedom and impact than foreign policy. To better understand how the candidates used foreign policy positions on the debate stage, and the limits of their understanding or desired policies, the fellows of the Center for International Policy have assembled to offer some deeper insight. A transcript of the debate can be read here.
       

      Sina Toossi, on the Middle East in the Debate

      The presidential debate offered little hope for a more peaceful and just U.S. foreign policy towards the Middle East. The most egregious moment was Trump’s use of “Palestinian” as an insult in an exchange with Biden over their “pro-Israel” stances, a shocking display of racism that has largely escaped mainstream scrutiny.

      Trump’s false claims about his Iran policy—asserting Iran was impotent and “broke” by the end of his term—belie the reality of his maximum pressure campaign, which provoked increased aggression from Iran, including unprecedented attacks on U.S. assets and allies, and accelerated nuclear activities.

      Biden also faltered, with factual inaccuracies about Iran having intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities and misleading claims about U.S. military members not being killed under his watch in the region. Both candidates failed to present a coherent vision of the realities of U.S. policies towards the region.

       

      Joanna Rozpedowski, on NATO in the Debate

      Voters concerned about America’s security and geopolitical strategy face a pivotal choice between two starkly different approaches to international conflicts the new president will inevitably confront.

      In the CNN debate, President Biden emphasized the importance of robust alliances and collective security measures, arguing that NATO and allied support are essential for deterring Russian aggression and maintaining global stability.

      Former President Trump’s transactional approach prioritized national sovereignty, extreme frugality, and direct negotiation over costly multilateral commitments. His rhetoric indicated skepticism about the economic and tactical burdens the US bears in supporting NATO’s Ukraine approach, which thus far failed to result in the war’s peaceful settlement and risks further escalation onto neighboring European countries.

      In November, this strategic divide presents Americans with a critical decision: maintain strong international alliances, an aggressive deterrence posture, and multilateral NATO engagement or attempt to resolve the conflict through diplomatic channels and direct negotiation. The decision rests squarely with the electorate.

       

      Michael Chamberlin, on Mexico in the Debate

      Regarding the issue of fentanyl crossing the border, neither candidate focuses on addressing the root causes. They fail to discuss how to collaborate with Mexico to strengthen its justice and anti-corruption institutions or how to stop Mexican criminal groups from obtaining guns in U.S. stores. Nothing was said about gun control in the United States or the movement of guns south through the same border, which arms the cartels that later send fentanyl north. Additionally, they overlook the importance of preventive measures from a health service perspective. Approaching the problem from a prohibition standpoint alone will never stop drug abuse.

       

      Negar Mortazavi, on Iran in the Debate

      Neither Trump nor Biden offered a coherent policy on Iran and the broader Middle East. Trump claimed that Iran had no money under his administration which is false. It’s true that he imposed broad sanctions against Iran that hurt the economy. But the impact of sanctions is mainly felt by average Iranian citizens and it does not really influence or change Iran’s foreign policy and regional spending. In fact, during Trump’s term tensions were high between Iran and its network of allies, the Axis of Resistance, and the U.S. and its regional allies.

      Trump’s assassination of the top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani brought the two countries to the brink of a dangerous war, with Iran retaliating against the U.S. by shooting missiles from its soil targeting U.S. forces in Iraq. Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy towards Iran was not only dangerous but failed to achieve its stated goal of bringing Iran to the negotiating table for a better deal.

      Biden’s policy towards Iran in general has not been very different or successful either. Candidate Biden had promised to prioritize diplomacy with Iran and revive the nuclear deal, but he couldn’t deliver on that promise.

       

      Van Jackson, on China in the Debate

      Biden has accepted Trump’s premise about China and economic statecraft. He now thinks reducing the trade deficit with China is a mark of progress. He imagines political economy as a zero-sum terrain where their gain is not just our loss; it’s a threat to us. This is the kind of economic nationalism that ultimately serves defense-industrial interests and reactionary political projects.Trump, for his part, openly accused the sitting American president of treason and corruption–he called him a “Manchurian candidate.” This is actual red-baiting; literally John Birch Society stuff. The notable thing, which is of pattern, is that Trump is using China as the wedge to attack his political opponent. The fascistic, corrupt politician is using the China bogeyman to advance his politics against his democratic opponent. The GOP did much the same in 2020 and 2022.

      It’s true that politicians from both parties try to play the “China card” to their advantage…but it’s false that the “China card” is some value-neutral object that anyone can use for their purposes with equal effectiveness. China-threat rhetoric systematically biases toward reactionary, demagogic political outcomes; it’s unfavorable terrain for democratic politics. That’s why Democrats who tried to out-hawk their opponents on China in 2022 fared poorly in the general election.

      Trump is not wrong that Biden’s foreign policy is pushing us toward World War III—we’re still insisting on a strategy of primacy in a world where power realities simply make it impossible. And by pursuing primacy anyway, the national security state naturalizes the necessity of the most dangerous kinds of policies: containment, arms-racing, and economic nationalism. This will not end well for anyone. The falsity in Trump’s rant though is that he is any better. Indeed, Biden’s China policy is Trump’s China policy. Worse, Trump’s implied theory of war prevention appears to be a form of extortion. Cultivating personal relationships with dictators, he insists, is the way to prevent World War III. That means that Trump puts himself in the position of telling the public, “Look, you want me to be friends with Xi and Putin and Kim. That’s how I’m preventing Armageddon.”

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      CIP Condemns COVID Vaccine Disinformation Campaign by Pentagon

      In response to the shocking report that the Pentagon initiated a social media manipulation-based disinformation campaign under the Trump Administration to discredit Chinese-origin vaccines and protective equipment among the Filipino public in an effort to undermine perceptions of China in the Philippines in the midst of the COVID pandemic, Center for International Policy President & CEO Nancy Okail issued the following statement:

      “Americans should be outraged that their government launched a disinformation campaign under Donald Trump that essentially weaponized the COVID pandemic, imperiling the lives of countless innocent people in the Philippines and beyond.

      Spreading dangerous lies about vaccines and personal protective equipment among an especially hard-hit population is inhumane in and of itself. To have done so for the sole purpose of eroding public perceptions about China in a partner country, while callously disregarding the certainty that it would jeopardize the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocents, is utterly indefensible.

      We are glad that the Biden Administration appears to have ended the campaign within its first few months of taking office. We call on relevant Congressional committees and leaders to seek a thorough investigation of this disinformation campaign and hold those responsible for it fully accountable.

      It is dangerous to let an abstract geopolitical concept override the urgent necessity of saving human lives. The outrage and distrust of the United States this cruel gambit is already beginning to engender demonstrates some of the inherent dangers of the ‘great power competition’ mindset that is  shaping US foreign policy across the globe. Rather than cooperating in areas like global health where US and Chinese interests align, the obsession with undercutting China on every issue and in every region leads to outcomes that ultimately harm US standing and security. The United States can be clear-eyed about the need to address China’s destabilizing actions and repressive policies, while at the same time better serving our essential interests by engaging China in a manner that reduces dangerous tensions rather than exacerbating them.”

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      Taiwan & Tensions with China: Five Recommendations for US Policy

      Taiwan has built a vibrant democracy on values Americans share and is an important US economic partner. China is the largest power in the region and sees Taiwan’s fate as central to its own national interest. US leaders need to manage these realities in a way that enhances regional and global stability, rather than framing disagreements over Taiwan as part of a dangerous narrative of inevitable conflict with China. Rhetoric about “winning” wars that neither Americans nor the people in that region want to fight is misguided and reckless. The US can best serve Taiwan’s security, and our own, by stabilizing relations with China in a manner that reduces the dangerous tensions that have built up between Washington and Beijing. The Center for International Policy has developed the following recommendations for US action toward that goal.

      Recommendation #1: Ratchet “competition” rhetoric down rather than up

      The people and government of Taiwan—as well as nearly all countries in the region—are saying loud and clear that they want a reduction in US–China tensions. Most countries also do not want to be forced to align with one side against the other. 

      The United States should amplify statements and actions that bolster the status quo. It should reiterate its longstanding position of strategic ambiguity to both China and Taiwan, and avoid inflammatory symbolic gestures that do little to increase Taiwan’s security but signal to China that Taiwan is moving toward formal independence. While opinion in Taiwan is highly fragmented on what status to ultimately aim for, there is an overwhelming consensus on what to do today: four of every five people in Taiwan want to maintain the ambiguous status quo.

      When Chinese official actions warrant criticism, the United States must also take care to clearly distinguish between the Chinese Communist Party-controlled government and the Chinese people. Calling out the human rights violations, repressive policies and authoritarianism of the Chinese government is crucial, but so is countering the increasing vilification of China in American politics, which not only puts the Chinese diaspora and Asian-Americans at risk of increased discrimination and violence; it repeats the dangerous “clash of civilizations” narrative reminiscent of the disastrous “war on terror” era.

      Recommendation #2: Support—don’t jeopardize—Taiwan’s self-defense

      Meeting the United States’ long-held objective of preserving stability in East Asia and the Pacific requires avoiding and dissuading others from taking actions that increase risks of war, encourage militarist policies, or empower reactionary politicians. America’s key tasks in this regard are to foreclose on the prospect of a future crisis and make miscalculation less, rather than more, likely.

      That means robustly supporting Taiwan’s self defense according to a principle of non-offensive or non-provocative defense, balancing the need to defend against and render prohibitively costly Chinese attempts at conquest with the twin imperatives of both preventing war in the first place and reducing the prospects of nuclear escalation should a war occur. Accordingly, US arms sales should focus on capabilities that support the political status quo and preserve strategic stability. That includes systems to help Taiwan blunt Chinese power projection while avoiding new weapons systems that could range deep into the Chinese mainland and eschewing an arms buildup on a scale that would be reasonably misperceived as mobilizing for war. It also means undertaking efforts to ensure Taiwanese cybersecurity and combat disinformation that could stoke belligerent sentiment and trigger confrontation.

      Recommendation #3: Foster stability by ensuring the legitimacy of international law survive its tests in Ukraine and Gaza

      While differences in the precise circumstances and histories of each conflict are apparent, Chinese aggression toward Taiwan would be subject to the same international humanitarian law (IHL) obligations as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the war in Gaza. The extent to which the United States affirms and acts to uphold the laws of war, human rights and democratic principles with regard to those conflicts has a tremendous impact on the international legal landscape in which China operates vis-a-vis Taiwan.

      Failure to champion adherence to international law in these conflicts – either by backing away from material support for Ukraine as it fights illegal conquest or by continuing to largely ignore Israeli IHL violations both in Gaza and in connection with its deepening occupation and annexation of the West Bank – undermines the universality of their application and makes it easier for actors like China to ignore them without fear of consequences from other states. The US unwillingness to take meaningful steps to protect Palestinian lives and rights in the Gaza war has led to accusations of hypocrisy. Continuing that mistaken approach, alongside the movement by rightwing forces in the US to limit or cease support for Ukraine, will only further degrade the international order the US constructed after WWII, eroding an important barrier to China and other actors that may consider more aggressive actions of their own.

      Recommendation #4: Invest in the US domestic critical technology workforce, while cooperating with China on shared challenges like climate change.

      The Biden administration has already taken steps to increase domestic production capacity for technologies critical to the security and economy of the United States, especially advanced technologies and those essential to address dire challenges like climate change. US technical innovation led the way in the 20th century and should continue to do so as we face new global challenges. Increasing government support for programs to ensure an ample and sustainable workforce for these industries – including through transitional income support, student loan forgiveness and substantially increased across–the-board investments in public education and societal welfare – should therefore also be pursued as a US security priority. 

      At the same time, US strategic investments in American democracy, equality, and prosperity must be undertaken in such a way that they do not simply redirect insecurity toward the rest of the world. The technologies needed to survive, mitigate, and overcome challenges like climate change and global health threats will not be built in one nation, and will require significant investment and cooperation from governments across the world.

      Both China and the US face tremendous challenges from warming temperatures, particularly in the area of desertification and water security. Cynically exploiting these vulnerabilities in China, as some have argued the United States should, in the hope that they lead to crisis and instability is both immoral and dangerous. Catastrophic or even substantial dysfunction in one of the world’s largest countries, economic engines and a nuclear power would imperil US and global security in a multitude of areas. Instead, the United States should approach cooperation on addressing urgent climate change imperatives – such as working with China to leverage non debt-creating climate finance investments and provide critical technical assistance to developing countries – as an opportunity to build trust and identify areas of mutual benefit on other issues.

      Recommendation #5: Advance global priorities that break away from an outdated and counterproductive “Great Power Competition” mindset

      The explicit embrace of a “Great Power Competition” worldview by the Biden Administration and much of the US foreign policy establishment drives its fixation on reducing China’s presence and influence around the world. The dangerously unquestioned need to “counter” or even “beat” China in region after region across the globe is not only reactionary, but subordinates US interests at home and abroad to a zero-sum fight that drains US resources and goodwill. China’s leaders, in turn, seem happy to accept the prestige that comes with being the apparently destined competitor of the United States. They shape China’s foreign and military policy with this confrontation paradigm in mind, with Taiwan’s fate teetering at the leading edge.

      The United States needs to recognize and secure its interests in the reality of a multi-polar world, rather than futilely attempting to forestall it via a costly and ultimately self-defeating effort to constantly disadvantage China. US military spending is already three times that of China (which is investing much of the difference in sectors like green technology). While China has a larger naval fleet in terms of vessel numbers, the US has far greater naval capability. What ultimately matters is not the actual balance of forces, but what a nation does with its share of the balance–and that has much to do with the overall tenor of relations and policy choices outside the military domain. The challenges that we face globally – among them climate change, political instability and pandemics — require equally global cooperation and cannot be solved militarily. 

      To break out of the zero-sum competition that dominates strategic thinking on both sides, a new approach to defining success in global influence is required, focusing on 1) global public goods like universal public health infrastructure and green energy for all; 2) significantly increasing development investment in those countries and regions that have been starved of capital for decades; and 3) guaranteeing human, political and labor rights globally. Building international cooperation around such a transformation of the global economy would reestablish US–China relations  on a new foundation, revive the legitimacy of international norms by expanding the opportunity it offers to people of all countries, and address the truly existential threats humanity faces today.

      CIP Response to the 2024 State of the Union

      Matt Duss is the Executive Vice President of the Center for International Policy

      On foreign policy, President Biden’s State of the Union last night didn’t give us too much to work with. He did come right out of the gate strong, talking about Ukraine. I can’t remember the last time a president opened the State of the Union talking about foreign policy, but it really served to underline the urgency of the need to pass the Ukraine aid package which has been stalled in Congress for months.

      The section on the Gaza war was unfortunately as expected. Yesterday’s announcement of the building of a Gaza port to facilitate humanitarian aid shouldn’t be dismissed  – more aid for Palestinians on the brink of starvation is obviously good. But as with the airdropping of aid it just reveals the incoherence of U.S. policy right now, in which we’re trying to ease Palestinian suffering while continuing to unconditionally arm and support the government that is intentionally inflicting that suffering.

      The president seems to recognize that ultimately this conflict will require a political solution, but is still unwilling to bring the full weight of America’s considerable leverage to that goal. Biden’s potted history of the conflict didn’t help. Hamas’ atrocities on October 7 were obviously the precipitating event, but this war did not begin on October 7. It has been waged against the Palestinians every day for years in the form of a violent and humiliating military occupation. Any effort to bring this conflict to a just resolution will need to confront that reality, and Biden seems unprepared to do that.

      On the bright side, Biden took what I think is exactly the right approach on his administration’s biggest foreign policy priority: China. He basically told everybody to chill out about it, he’s got this. This isn’t dismissing the challenge, he hasn’t done that, but I think taking a less hysterical approach is something that will lead to a more rational discussion and better, more effective policy.

      On immigration, a key goal must be tackling root causes, such as corruption and violence, in US-Latin America policy. The president unfortunately allowed himself to be drawn into a back and forth with Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green over the murder of Laken Riley, a 22 year old Georgia nursing student who was murdered by an undocumented migrant who had been released into the country after being detained. Biden’s statement that Riley had been “killed by an illegal” was a misstep that plays right into the right’s anti-immigrant rhetoric, which is unfortunately in keeping with his general approach to immigration lately, where he’s been willing to tack right and offer some pretty dangerous concessions to try and save the Ukraine aid package. But many of the principles and values at stake at our border are the same ones at stake in Ukraine: human safety and dignity, a commitment to international law. It’s wrong to think we can promote one while selling out the other.

      But the bottom line is there just wasn’t much foreign policy in it at all. A few paragraphs in a nearly 90 minute speech. And that reflects his administration’s approach: they would like to talk about foreign policy as little as possible. President Biden has a strong case to make in terms of his administration’s domestic accomplishments. They’ve been able to get important things done that are showing huge benefits to the American people. He has a similar opportunity to advance a foreign policy agenda that improves the lives of Americans and global populations alike. Given that foreign policy is clearly going to be a much bigger issue in this election than anyone expected, I think it was a missed opportunity to stake out a bolder vision.

       

      What we’d love to hear President Biden say on Foreign Policy in his State of the Union address

      In February 2021, in his first major foreign policy address as president, Biden declared the US must engage with the world “with diplomacy rooted in America’s most cherished democratic values: defending freedom, championing opportunity, upholding universal rights, respecting the rule of law, and treating every person with dignity.”

      Since then, the President has made some significant progress: restoring alliances, leading a strong and calibrated response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, ending the US war in Afghanistan, attacking the corruption and violence in Latin America fueling the migration crisis. But he must finish the job.

      In his State of the Union address tonight, here are five (of many) opportunities for what President Joe Biden could say if he wants to show Congress, the American people and the world that he is serious about advancing true US interests and global human security:

       

      1. There must be a ceasefire, return of all Israeli hostages and massive emergency humanitarian aid effort in Gaza. Furthermore, this administration can and must fully enforce relevant US and international law to ensure protection of civilians from indiscriminate bombardment, starvation and disease.
      2. The US response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine offers a positive case study for US engagement with the world in a way that honors our principles and advances security – but universality and consistency are necessary to safeguard the benefits. President Biden will be right to call on right-wing extremists in Congress to end their obstruction of aid to Ukraine – desperately needed aid, replete with the transparency and accountability mechanisms necessary to ensure the American public and the world can scrutinize its rightful use. Consistent adherence to international law will only strengthen his case.
      3. China and our allies in Asia alike must know that Americans’ highest aspirations for the Pacific are that the world’s most populous region be one of peace, prosperity and unlimited potential. The US-China relationship is not zero-sum. Tensions are inevitable, but escalation and war are a choice. While we will never shy away from defending the democratic and human rights of all in the region, our priority is to coexist and cooperate on our many areas of shared interest.
      4. The man-made climate crisis is here. The only reasonable discussion to have is how to minimize and mitigate it effectively and fairly – that means we and international partners must commitment to aggressive multilateral carbon reduction goals, massive public investment in a just and sustainable transition away from fossil fuels – including breaking the harmful feedback loop between militarism and climate change – and the equitable sharing of burdens of climate and other ecological change impacts.
      5. We must make clear that the survival of not only democracy around the globe, but the American experiment itself depends on whether we succeed in countering rising ultranationalism, autocracy, kleptocracy, oligarchy and corruption – as well as the inherent inequality, discrimination, repression and economic precarity that comes with them.

      The President has an opportunity tonight to demonstrate that he is the leader that the people of this and other nations want and deserve – the leader that earned him praise and support in years past. To do that, we must stop repeating the failures of the past, especially when it comes to foreign policy.

      Lawmakers, Progressive Leaders Urge Reorientation of Foreign Policy as a 2024 Imperative

      On February 6, Members of Congress and progressive movement leaders gathered at a conference hosted by the Center for International Policy (CIP), demanding changes to US foreign policy decisions as a necessity in a consequential year that will determine the trajectory of the US both at home and globally.

      In a keynote address seen by over 60,000 people, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) argued that the concentration of wealth and power foments war, violence and mass insecurity for everyday people globally, benefiting billionaires at the expense of whole families, nations, peoples and regions and declared that, “For many decades we have seen a ‘bipartisan consensus’ on foreign policy—a consensus which, sadly, has almost always been wrong.”

      Pointing to the distorting influence of moneyed forces ranging from AIPAC, super PACs, big defense contractors, fossil fuel companies, pharmaceutical companies, oligarchs supporting Putin, Trump and other autocrats, and other multi-billionaires and multinational corporations; as well as the growth of right-wing extremism, tax havens and economic inequality, Senator Sanders declared, “It’s hard to overstate just how fundamentally this broken global financial system undermines faith in democracy and saps our ability to deal with the pressing crises we face today.”

      “​​We live in a world where a small number of multi-billionaires and multinational corporations exert enormous economic and political power over virtually every country on earth,” added Sanders. “That reality has a huge impact on all aspects of our foreign policy and whether or not we will be able to effectively address the major crises we face.”

      In a “Congress and Progressive Foreign Policy” session, Members of Congress discussed their personal pathways to foreign policy and outlined key challenges and opportunities for a “people-centered national security” that delivers for people in the US and the Global South, recognizes the interdependence of domestic and foreign policy on issues like migration and climate change, and allows the outside world to interact with the US in positive ways like refugee resettlement rather than negative, militarized interactions.

      “Nowadays, most people are interacting with the United States through drones, through weapons that are made in the US that are in the hands of dictators, police or their military, or they’re interacting with us in regards to sanctions that are making it hard for them to have necessary medication and food. And that creates a national security problem for us,” said Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN).

      “We’ve spent more on border security since 2013 than was in the immigration reform bill of 2013. And we’ve seen no improvement in anything because we haven’t fundamentally shifted the system. So we have to think about, how do we invest in other countries? Our foreign policy is directly tied to this,” added Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA).

      “What I would like to see is a people-centered security, where the United States can actually engage with people of a nation, and help empower them, help them pursue freedom and dignity on their terms, not necessarily our terms,” concluded Representative Jason Crow (D-CO).

      In “Prioritizing a Progressive Foreign Policy Agenda,” regional experts discussed strategies for the US to reorient its relations to better serve the people and address the realities and needs on the ground. Speaking to the pitfalls of Great Power Competition and the Cold War as frameworks for US-China relations, China expert Ali Wyne declared, “Diplomacy is not something that you do out of kindness to competitors. It’s something that you do to advance your own national interest.” “We can’t support a progressive movement in Ukraine if they’re dead,” emphasized Terrell Jermaine Starr. Speaking on Latin America, María José Espinosa Carillo stressed, “We have deep connections with the region, not only through our borders, but also through funding and economic ties. But what’s more important, there is a renewed vision of the region.”

      In “The Political Necessity of a New Foreign Policy,” movement leaders from MoveOn, Center for American Progress, AFL-CIO and Win Without War explored the intersection of domestic and foreign affairs, offering their analysis of policy tradeoffs and highlighting how they see these issues moving the progressive base.

      “That [progressive foreign policy] actually is not just a morally and ethical position, but it is an electorally salient one, one that is a winning position in elections,” declared MoveOn executive director Rahna Epting. “With Biden, he campaigned in 2020 promising to end endless wars, and that helped him win. That was one of the reasons I believe helped him win in that election cycle. And now we see Donald Trump poised to exploit the current situation in Israel Gaza and how that’s going to show up in November.” 

      Center for American Progress president and CEO Patrick Gaspard described the threat of antidemocratic forces at home and abroad, and said, “We’re now in a place of the world where you win votes by arguing that you build a moat around yourselves and pull up the drawbridge, our progressive transnationalism, internationalism is not actually ascendant. We should recognize that and we should fight fiercely.”

      This fight for democracy at home and abroad takes place not just at the ballot box but in workplaces too. Cathy Feingold, International Director for the AFL-CIO, argued we must recast our priorities in favor of “ worker-centered security,” explaining, “It sends a very specific message to people in this country and around the world who are working day in and day out and want to make sure that they can live with dignity. I have found that workers here and workers around the world are interconnected.”

      Win Without War executive director Sara Haghdoosti added, “We talk about foreign policy like there are not people in this country who have family connections, and deep commitment to what happens around the world. And it’s just not okay. That’s not how people work.”

      View all the key moments from the conference on YouTube here and read opening remarks from CIP president and CEO Nancy Okail here.

      Issue Brief: U.S. Security Cooperation with Taiwan

      An overview of U.S. security cooperation with Taiwan amid rising tensions with China

      Echos of Cold War Containment in U.S. Security Assistance

      As the U.S. seeks to contain the growing regional clout of China and Russia in their near abroads, American policymakers may find that historic realities of each region may create varying degrees of success for their efforts.