China Builds Influence in America's Old Pacific Backyard
'In a desert, an oasis is life saving. And in a vast ocean of blue, a little spot becomes extremely important for survival or defense or power projection,' Cleo Paskal, a senior fellow at the Washington-based think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), explained in a podcast this month.
Japan was well aware of this axiom in the early 1900s, when it acquired the administration of a vast stretch of the central Pacific Ocean — offering a series of outposts from which it could cut off its rival, the US, from east Asia. Today, it's China that's eyeing economic and diplomatic inroads into a pivotal area stretching east of the Philippines, from Palau to Micronesia to the Marshall Islands.
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Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has made aggressive use of tariffs. In addition to his levies on China, he has imposed "baseline'' 10% taxes on imports from every country in the world . And he's announced even higher taxes — so-called reciprocal tariffs ranging from 11% to 50% — on countries with which the United States runs a trade deficit. But after financial markets sank on fears of massive disruption to world trade, Trump suspended the reciprocal levies for 90 days to give countries a chance to negotiate reductions in their barriers to U.S. exports. That pause lasts until July 8. On Friday, Bessent told Fox Business Network that the talks could extend beyond the deadline and be 'wrapped up by Labor Day'' Sept. 1 with 10 to 12 of America's most important trading partners. Trump further played down the July 8 deadline at a White House press conference Friday by noting that negotiations are ongoing but that 'we have 200 countries, you could say 200 countries-plus. You can't do that.' Instead of new trade deals, Trump said his administration would in coming days or weeks send out a letter where 'we're just gonna tell them what they have to pay to do business in the United States.'' Separately, Trump took sudden aim at Canada Friday, saying on social media that he's immediately suspending trade talks with that country over its plan to impose a tax on technology firms next Monday. Trump called Canada's digital services tax 'a direct and blatant attack on our country.' The digital services tax will hit companies like Amazon, Google, Meta, Uber and Airbnb with a 3% levy on revenue from Canadian users. 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