In Asia, Trump still has a ways to go
He has declared success on trade and North Korea, but the future will decide
WASHINGTON – President Trump declared victory over his five-nation trip to Asia, but the work has just begun.
Trump spent a dozen days demanding that North Korea give up its nuclear weapons program, vowing to “fix” the global trading system and wooing China. He insisted with the enthusiasm of a salesman that his trip would lead to “reciprocal” trade deals, a more fruitful relationship with China and an international effort to pressure Pyongyang.
Despite the self-proclaimed dealmaker’s sense of triumph, the success of Trump’s trip actually depends on what he — and China, North Korea, South Korea and Japan, among others — do in the months or years ahead.
Some analysts said Trump put himself in a bad position with his performance overseas by seeking short-term successes while failing to address longterm concerns.
“Trump seems to think that a good personal relationship with Xi will be enough to get his way on trade issues and North Korea, but there is no evidence of this,” said Richard McGregor, author of
Asia’s Reckoning: China, Japan, and the Fate of U.S. Power in the Pacific Century.
“China will do the minimum it has to do to keep him at bay and no more.”
Down the line, Trump has a long to-do list with Asia:
Pressure North Korea.
A major theme of Trump’s trip was convincing Asian countries that North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs threaten the whole world.
Demanding the “total de-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Trump said at the East Asia Summit that other countries must help by implementing U.N. Security Council sanctions, cutting off trade and commerce.
The question is now: Will they listen? Trump will surely be watching to see if more countries place more economic sanctions on North Korea, as Japan did in the wake of Trump’s visit.
The key: China, which is more or less North Korea’s economic patron. President Xi Jinping has been critical of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, but there are no signs China is prepared to put a real economic squeeze on Kim’s government.
For what it’s worth: North Korea did not welcome the president to Asia with any kind of nuclear test — something some observers thought leader Kim Jong Un might do. Instead, North Korea lobbed rhetorical bombs, calling Trump a “dotard” who “begged for nuclear war.”
Forge a ‘reciprocal’ trade policy.
In defending his decision to pull the United States from the 12-member Trans-Pacific Partnership — still a sore spot with Asian allies — Trump stressed during his trip that he wants instead to pursue bilateral, one-on-one trade deals with countries such as Japan.
But so far, those discussions have been stagnant. And global markets will be watching to see whether those talks speed up after Trump’s trip.
A lot of that is up to the Trump administration. For instance, South Korea is waiting to see whether the Trump administration wants to reopen negotiations on its free-trade agreement with the United States.
But other countries could make their own decisions.
Trump said the United States would stop participating in multicountry megadeals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would have created a 12-member Asia trading bloc from the United States to Vietnam. The other members of the proposed partnership, though, still like the idea, and during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference, they met on the sidelines to decide whether to move forward with the agreement — without the United States.
Find a new path with China.
Several analysts pointed out that Trump — who on the campaign trail attacked China more than any other country when it came to trade — took quite a different approach when he visited the Middle Kingdom.
While he did say he wanted the Chinese to stop manipulating currency and stealing intellectual property from American businesses, Trump also pledged to work with Xi’s government on various issues. He also went on at length about the pageant Xi put on to welcome the first-year president.
While Trump secured agreements from the Chinese to buy American products, however, the Chinese did not make any announcements about opening up more of their markets to American producers. Nor did they discuss changes to overarching trade policies or announce new crackdowns on North Korea.
McGregor said Trump “seemed overly deferential to his hosts as a result of the flattery bestowed on him,” and that might not pay off in the long run.
One way to judge progress is to focus on Xi, who consolidated his power at the China Communist Congress that preceded Trump’s visit. With China on track to overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy, some hard-liners within Xi’s government want China to assert itself more in Asia and throughout the globe, whether the U.S. likes it or not.