Donald Trump has been tormented for decades by the idea that the rest of the world is laughing at America. Even as the 47th president, he still regularly launches late-night, ALL-CAPS social media rants about other countries “LAUGHING ALL THE WAY.”
But it’s his fear and loathing of China “laughing” at the United States that he’s made into a firm pillar of his political movement. Just listen to almost any MAGA podcast or read your average pro-Trump conspiracy theory panic blog. They will regularly fulminate about China dominating the world and accuse every American leader other than Trump of surrendering our country’s greatness to the “globalists” and “communists.”
And yet, less than seven months into Trump’s second term, China is sitting pretty when it comes to its economic, military and diplomatic clout around the world. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can thank President Trump’s frantic, flailing and impetuous policymaking for much of its enhanced stature.
On Monday, Trump signed an executive order that extends the pause on Chinese tariffs by another 90 days. And The New York Times reported last week that China’s overall exports in July increased by 7.2% compared to July 2024, with its imports up 4.1%. And those surges represent an increase in China’s trade with Southeast Asia, Africa and the European Union — and a huge drop in trade with the U.S.
Meanwhile, Trump’s economic chaos has also helped make China into South America’s top trading partner. In other words, Trump’s mad king tariff-making has created huge opportunities for China in the global market, of which the CCP is taking swift advantage.
Also last week, Trump essentially put the U.S. on the path toward an all-out trade war with India when he threatened to raise punitive tariffs on the country to 50%.
American companies had been investing heavily in India in recent years, and its relatively young total population of roughly 1.4 billion surpassed China’s in 2023. A country with a huge market that was acting as a bulwark against Chinese economic domination of Asia seems like the kind of ally a president obsessed with China’s ascendance would want. But Trump has instead gotten cozier with India’s archrival Pakistan and threatened Apple with a 25% tariff unless the iPhones it sells in the U.S. are manufactured in the U.S. and “not India, or anyplace else.” Trump also mocked what he called India’s “dead economy.”
Since Jan. 20, Trump’s dismantling of America’s “soft power” around the world has also left voids that have quickly been filled by China. Following Trump’s gutting of Voice of America, China expanded its media operations in Asia and Africa, where the citizenry can get a healthy dose of subtle pro-China propaganda with no pro-America counterpart. And Trump’s shuttering of U.S. embassies and consulates creates a gaping diplomatic void in pockets of the world for China to fill.
In a report released in July, Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee wrote, “In private, our allies tell us that Chinese officials are gleeful, characterizing the United States as unreliable. In some cases, China is filling the void we have left behind, buying up now-vacant radio frequencies to broadcast its propaganda to millions. But in many cases, Beijing is doubling down on its own long-term investments — in overseas infrastructure, critical minerals exploitation and exchange programs that bring foreign talent to Chinese universities — all while America withdraws.”
It also appears that many Chinese nationalists are, in fact, laughing at the U.S., even as they cheer for Trump, whom they see as an entertaining, useful idiot who is advancing China’s interests at the expense of America’s.
The Economist wrote in December 2024 about pro-Trump Chinese nationalists:
To be sure, many of those who cheer for Mr Trump do so out of contempt for America. They share clips of his moments of buffoonery and sneer at his nominations for cabinet posts — don’t they prove what a sham democracy is, with jobs so flagrantly doled out to loyalists regardless of their suitability? The nationalists relish the thought that Mr Trump might weaken American support for Taiwan or end military aid for Ukraine. They refer to him by a nickname: Chuan Jianguo, meaning ‘Trump the Nation Builder’. It is supposed to be ironic — they mean he is making China stronger by undermining America.
THe economist
There’s also ample evidence of the supposedly China-loathing Trump seeming to act in the CCP’s best interests.
Former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton wrote in The Hill that some examples of “Trump’s softness” on China “include allowing Nvidia to resume exports of sensitive information technology to China and ignoring legal requirements to ban TikTok or force it to divest its Chinese ownership.”
Trump has also taken pains to not displease Chinese leader Xi Jinping over Taiwan — which the CCP views as an illegitimate breakaway state that it intends to bring under its yoke someday. The Trump administration last month told Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te to avoid a stopover in New York, according to reporting in The New York Times, which also quoted former Trump administration deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger as saying the U.S. “bent over backwards” to avoid offending China and that “Beijing will pocket this concession and ask for more.”
Nicholas Grossman wrote in these pages in April, “If the eventual result is China’s rising to become the world’s predominant power, historians will note that it didn’t take global leadership, America threw it away.” But we don’t have to wait for historians’ take on Trump inexplicably ceding many of America’s long-held advantages on the global stage to China.
Thanks to Trump’s manic incompetence and nihilistic vision of the world, China’s leaders and nationalists are laughing at us already. Trump’s given them plenty of amusing material.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
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