Emperor Trump keeps demanding his vassals don’t work with China

A week ago the US President Trump warned Canadian leader Mark Carney not to strike trade deals with China. This week it is UK PM Keir Starmer’s turn. Yet the US has itself moved away from China. So what is The Donald thinking?

Starmer has been in Beijing looking to improve relations. It’s the first visit by a UK PM since 2018. He said the two countries should:

work together on issues like climate change, global stability during challenging times.

Bold aims. But looking at Starmer’s entourage, it’s all business, Al Jazeera noted:

The prime minister is accompanied by a delegation of nearly 60 representatives of businesses and cultural organisations, including banking conglomerate HSBC, pharmaceutical giant GSK, carmaker Jaguar Land Rover and the UK’s National Theatre.

The visit is also a chance for a reset, Starmer seems to think. Relations have been strained for some years. Starmer said:

China is a vital player on the global stage, and it’s vital that we build a more sophisticated relationship where we can identify opportunities to collaborate, but of course, also allow a meaningful dialogue on areas where we disagree.

Trump isn’t happy…

Asked about the UK visit on 30 January, Trump said:

It’s very dangerous for them to do that.

He immediately then pivoted back to Canada, who he’d slammed days before for deepening relations with China:

 And it’s even more dangerous, I think, for Canada to get into business with China.

He added:

Canada is not doing well. They’re doing very poorly, and you can’t look at China as the answer.

Trump and Carney clashed at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. Their war of words followed a lofty speech about the end of the global order from Carney on 23 January. Trump’s subsequent speech was customarily rambling and erratic. Though the president backed down over his threats to annex Greenland — for now.

And Trump made sure that he took the chance to fire a warning shot at Carney, who was present:

Canada lives because of the United States. Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.

But beneath the posturing, there is something else cooking.

Move away from China

The US made it clear in its recent National Security Strategy (NSS) that China is being de-prioritised. The western hemisphere is what matters to US leaders now.

As the Wall Street Journal pointed out on 6 December:

the document… plays down ideological differences between the U.S. and China, instead placing economics and trade front and center in the relationship.

It names China only a handful of times—almost exclusively in terms of the economic relationship.

Jessica Chen Weiss, a professor of China studies at Johns Hopkins University, told the Journal China would see the NSS as:

a relatively favorable turn in U.S. grand strategy.

It is always hard to know what’s going on the brain of Emperor Donald. But his discomfort at the idea of countries he thinks owe him loyalty working with China is clear. Carney’s speech was right after all: what for decades passed as a global rules-based order is coming apart. It’s been doing so for a while.

It might be this that is weighing on Trump. And that insecurity may account for his cajoling of Starmer and Carney over China. Because fading empires tend to be volatile beasts, if nothing else.

Featured image via the Canary