If President Trump wants a more focused “closing argument” for his campaign, an obvious one is teed up for him to hit out of the park. Trump could make the issue of the presidential race the need to and the ability to stand tough against Communist China.
Almost every other issue Trump has tried to bat around in recent weeks can be incorporated into the anti-China framework. It’s also a framework within which opponent Joe Biden has tremendous vulnerabilities.
Let us show the ways Trump can use the China framework to his advantage (while noting that the arguments below will adopt a Trumpian political framing, whether or not that framing is 100% accurate or wise).
Some polls say the year’s biggest issue is the coronavirus. Trump is absolutely right to blame China — both its lax practices at its virus lab, nearby “wet markets,” and its deadly cover-ups while the virus’ spread might still have been controllable. And while he somewhat exaggerates both the scope and the efficacy of his ban on travel from China, the fact remains that the ban was helpful and that Biden opposed it. Trump was right, while Biden was wrong.
Ever since Trump entered the political scene, his two most identifiable issues have been immigration and trade. Being tough on trade means being tough on China, all for the sake of American jobs. Trump famously imposed tariffs on China that the Obama-Biden administration never even dreamed of, even with the World Trade Organization directly opposing him. Trump is tough against China’s trade practices, whereas Biden has been weak.
Except in the sheer number of nuclear warheads (Russia still dominates), China quite clearly is the most powerful military challenger to the United States. Here, Trump’s military build-up stands in sharp contrast to the Obama-Biden military spending and force reductions. Trump’s military is better equipped to counter China than Biden’s was.
Trump has been outspoken against political correctness and the leftist indoctrination on college campuses. So-called “Confucius Institutes” and similar China-state-owned outfits have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on college (and sometimes elementary and high-school) campuses, where they have been accused of becoming indoctrination centers and sometimes have advocated for shutting down speakers with whom they disagree. The Trump administration has formally fought the influence of such institutes, whereas the Obama administration promoted them as welcomed centers of “cultural exchange.”
Then there are Hunter Biden’s sleazy business dealings with China, which his father Joe at least abetted, reportedly advised on, and perhaps even benefited from. Trump can quite legitimately ask whether Joe Biden isn’t at least emotionally compromised by his son’s enmeshment in businesses co-owned by direct subsidiaries of the Chinese Communist government. If China is this nation’s preeminent adversary, Biden’s potential susceptibility to conflicting impulses is what Joe Biden himself might term a “big f—ing deal.”
The simple truth is that Joe Biden has been a suck-up to China’s government for a long, long time (as this video, beginning at the 17:17 mark, amply shows). “The rise of China is an incredibly positive development,” Joe Biden said, or numerous variations thereof. “It is in our self-interest that China continue to prosper … China is a great nation, and we should hope for the continued expansion … They’re not bad folks … China is not a problem.”
Yeah, right.
So, on the economy, the military, our campuses, the coronavirus, and dodgy business dealings, Trump has stood against Chinese influence while Joe Biden supported it. With the ability to roll up all those issues into one, anti-China closing argument, Trump makes a huge political error if he doesn’t exploit it.
