Latest news with #globalinfluence
Bloomberg
5 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Citadel's Ubide Says ‘Now or Never' for EU Rival to Treasuries
Europe needs to increase joint-bond sales to create a regional safe asset that can rival US Treasuries, according to a top economist at Citadel. It's 'now or never,' if the European Union wants to compete with China and the US for global influence, Angel Ubide, Citadel's head of economic research for fixed income and macro, told Bloomberg Radio.
CTV News
14-07-2025
- Business
- CTV News
Senate Democrats say Trump's policies are hurting America's ability to compete with China
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump's foreign aid cuts, tariffs on allies and restrictions on international students have 'deeply' undermined America's ability to compete with China, U.S. Senate Democrats say. In a report released Monday, Democrats on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee called for congressional action toward restoring the country's global reputation and influence to ensure the U.S. will not be unseated by China as the world's leading power. 'America's retreat from the world will have real and lasting consequences for the American people,' the report says. 'And a retreat from the system that we helped build following the Second World War — based on democracy, economic interdependence and American values — means China is increasingly able to set the global agenda at the expense of U.S. interests.' The report comes about six months after Trump returned to the White House and began taking drastic measures that his administration says will improve government efficiency and protect U.S. interests, triggering condemnation from Democrats that the moves could amount to ceding global influence to China. White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said the U.S. is strong again under Trump and that his foreign policy is effective 'because of his willingness to look anyone in the eye to get better deals for the American people.' 'His strategy is paying off, as evidenced by the recent trade deal that created a path towards open market access for Americans and China's actions to control the spread of deadly fentanyl,' she said. In the report, the Democrats criticized the Trump administration's gutting of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which was a key way of distributing foreign assistance, and the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) — both tools to extend U.S. soft power and counter Beijing's influence. While Trump's cuts to USAGM, whose outlets deliver uncensored information to parts of the world under authoritarian rule and often without a free press of their own, has resulted in the loss of 54 frequencies by Radio Free Asia and millions of users. Chinese state-run media outlets have added 80 new radio frequencies and multiple languages to their programming, the report said. The administration's cuts to foreign aid programs also has allowed China to surpass the U.S. as the largest bilateral assistance partner for more than 40 countries, according to the report. 'China is building influence, expanding relationships and reshaping the global order to its advantage,' said U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking Democrat on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In a call with reporters, Shaheen said some Republicans, while unwilling to join the Democrats in the report, share the same concerns over the threat posed by Beijing. The office of committee Chairman Jim Risch, R-Idaho, declined to comment. The report criticized Trump's tariffs on allies and partners including the European Union, Mexico, Canada and Japan. 'Blanket tariffs are not just wreaking economic havoc at home, they are also eroding longstanding U.S. alliances, including making it even more difficult to increase defense spending to five per cent' of gross domestic product, the report said. That's the new goal agreed to by NATO allies. The administration's proposals to cut funding for scientific research and crack down on top U.S. universities and foreign students could lead to a brain drain, the report warned, noting China is jumping at the opportunity to lure talent. Didi Tang, The Associated Press
Associated Press
14-07-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Senate Democrats say Trump's policies are hurting America's ability to compete with China
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's foreign aid cuts, tariffs on allies and restrictions on international students have 'deeply' undermined America's ability to compete with China, Senate Democrats say. In a report released Monday, Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee called for congressional action toward restoring the country's global reputation and influence to ensure the U.S. will not be unseated by China as the world's leading power. 'America's retreat from the world will have real and lasting consequences for the American people,' the report says. 'And a retreat from the system that we helped build following the Second World War — based on democracy, economic interdependence and American values — means China is increasingly able to set the global agenda at the expense of U.S. interests.' The report comes about six months after Trump returned to the White House and began taking drastic measures that his administration says will improve government efficiency and protect U.S. interests, triggering condemnation from Democrats that the moves could amount to ceding global influence to China. White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said the U.S. is strong again under Trump and that his foreign policy is effective 'because of his willingness to look anyone in the eye to get better deals for the American people.' 'His strategy is paying off, as evidenced by the recent trade deal that created a path towards open market access for Americans and China's actions to control the spread of deadly fentanyl,' she said. In the report, the Democrats criticized the Trump administration's gutting of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which was a key way of distributing foreign assistance, and the U.S. Agency for Global Media — both tools to extend U.S. soft power and counter Beijing's influence. While Trump's cuts to USAGM, whose outlets deliver uncensored information to parts of the world under authoritarian rule and often without a free press of their own, has resulted in the loss of 54 frequencies by Radio Free Asia and millions of users. Chinese state-run media outlets have added 80 new radio frequencies and multiple languages to their programming, the report said. The administration's cuts to foreign aid programs also has allowed China to surpass the U.S. as the largest bilateral assistance partner for more than 40 countries, according to the report. 'China is building influence, expanding relationships and reshaping the global order to its advantage,' said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In a call with reporters, Shaheen said some Republicans, while unwilling to join the Democrats in the report, share the same concerns over the threat posed by Beijing. The office of committee Chairman Jim Risch, R-Idaho, declined to comment. The report criticized Trump's tariffs on allies and partners including the European Union, Mexico, Canada and Japan. 'Blanket tariffs are not just wreaking economic havoc at home, they are also eroding longstanding U.S. alliances, including making it even more difficult to increase defense spending to 5%" of gross domestic product, the report said. That's the new goal agreed to by NATO allies. The administration's proposals to cut funding for scientific research and crack down on top U.S. universities and foreign students could lead to a brain drain, the report warned, noting China is jumping at the opportunity to lure talent.
New York Times
14-07-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Democrats Accuse Trump of Ceding Global Influence to China
A report to be released Monday by Democrats serving on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee charges that the Trump administration has ceded diplomatic ground and global influence to China. The report argues that Beijing is 'filling the void we have left behind' by shuttering international aid operations and institutions like Voice of America, slashing funding for basic research and alienating key American allies. The minority-issued report comprises the first comprehensive political and policy response by Democrats to the series of budget cuts, confrontations with top research universities and termination of programs that comprised the elements of American soft power that have defined President Trump's first six months in office. Perhaps the most interesting element of the report: Democrats chose the relationship with China — rather than Mr. Trump's early refusal to back Ukraine, or the effects of tariffs — to frame its national security critique. In an interview, Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the ranking Democrat on the committee, who initiated the report, said that was because 'Democrats and Republicans alike agree on one thing: that one of the biggest threats to our future in the United States, both our economic and our national security future, is competition with China. And yet as I look at what the administration has done since it came into office, they have made decision after decision that undercut any coordinated strategic response to how we deal with China.' So far Mr. Trump has not met with Xi Jinping, China's president, and his few telephone interactions with him, officials say, have not gone beyond familiar talking points on the future of Taiwan, China's nuclear buildup, and disputes over export controls of key technologies. Mr. Trump has focused almost entirely on the trade relationship, his aides say, and there are signs of division inside the administration over shifting the focus of American forces out of Europe and the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
24-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
America's Adversaries Are Gaining the Global Megaphone
America's rivals celebrated as the Trump administration set out to dismantle its global influence and information infrastructure, including the media outlets that had helped market the United States as the world's moral and cultural authority. The editor in chief of RT, the Kremlin-backed news network, crowed about President Trump's 'awesome decision' to shut down Voice of America, the federally funded network that reports in countries with limited press freedom. 'Today is a holiday for me and my colleagues!' Hu Xijin, a former editor in chief of China's state-run outlet Global Times, wrote that the paralysis of Voice of America and Radio Free Asia was 'really gratifying' and, he hoped, 'irreversible.' A top aide to Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary posted that he 'couldn't be happier' about the administration's move in February to gut the agency that distributed foreign media funding. Officials in Cambodia and Cuba also welcomed the cuts. In the months since, China, Russia and other U.S. rivals have moved to commandeer the communications space abandoned by the Americans. They have pumped more money into their own global media endeavors, expanded social outreach programs abroad and cranked up the volume when publicizing popular cultural exports. Foreign policy experts say the Trump administration is not just losing its grip on the global megaphone but handing it off to its eager adversaries. In doing so, they said, the United States is relinquishing its primacy as a global influencer and neglecting its defenses against the damaging narratives and disinformation that could fill the vacuum. 'What we're doing, in a sense, is playing into their hands,' said Catherine Luther, a professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, who has studied Russian influence. 'These states tend to be the leaders in creating the playbook for other countries to use.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
