Trump’s China policy lacks strategy and coherence: former Biden officials
At Carnegie event, ex-officials say Trump’s approach echoes first term, with swings from tariffs to accommodation and little clear strategy
Washington’s China policy lacks strategy, coherence and a clear framework in US President Donald Trump’s second term, mirroring his first, according to a former senior official in the Joe Biden administration.
Former Biden officials, speaking at a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace event on Tuesday, said there was little evidence of systemic policy when they assumed power in early 2021, after Trump’s first term, a pattern that appeared to be repeating itself.
“There were themes about how to compete with China,” said Laura Rosenberger, a former senior National Security Council official. “But there was no real integrated policy approach … across different arms of the US government”.
She also warned that Trump, with his unilateral bias, was again engaging in a “complete marginalising of our allies” and is, in some ways, going even further, “putting ourselves backwards in terms of our ability to harness that power”.
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Rosenberger was joined at the Carnegie event, titled “Did Biden Get China Right? Lessons Learned and What Comes Next”, by fellow former officials Rush Doshi and Julian Gewirtz, who also helped shape Biden’s China policy.