FOR decades, American grand strategy has been built on three pillars: open trade and the prosperity that flows from it; strong formal and informal alliances, from Japan to Australia to Singapore; and the promotion of democratic values. It is not clear that Donald Trump, America’s president-elect, cares for any of them. His victory represents a huge blow to American power and prestige in Asia.
Start with trade. For years the Obama administration has promoted the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as a gold-standard trade deal. It was never an easy sell domestically, but its proponents held out a faint hope that it could pass in the lame-duck Congress. That now appears unlikely: lawmakers are sensitive to the national mood, and whatever Trump voters voted for, it wasn’t for trade deals with Asia.
Indeed, Mr Trump threatens to start a trade war with China, America’s biggest trade partner, promising to slap punitive tariffs of 45% on Chinese goods. Though America would probably be the biggest victim of such a war, it would also ripple through production networks that span Asia, killing jobs and knocking...Continue reading
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