By Chris Alden, Felix Brender, and Lukas Fiala
While U.S. elections have commonly captured the world’s attention, it is safe to say this week’s result has perhaps been one of the most anxiously anticipated outcomes both within the U.S. and in foreign capitals around the world.
Over the past four years, the Biden administration has consolidated a more assertive approach to China’s policy across economic, technological, security, and other areas. From the Lobito corridor in Angola to the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, Washington has also attempted to compete more effectively with Beijing across the Global South.
While details about staff appointments and a China policy agenda under Trump are not yet available, it is all but guaranteed that Trump’s strategy for competing with China across the Global South would be characterized by inherent contradictions within his MAGA movement overall.
The first contradiction stems from the tension between Trump’s more isolationist rhetoric and the ambition among some in the Republican policy community to present a more assertive alternative to China’s development finance and global governance initiatives. Building a more coordinated and deeper economic and diplomatic presence across Africa, Latin America, and other parts of the Global South will require developing more rather than less understanding of the world beyond American shores. Similarly, erecting economic barriers to the U.S. market through tariffs would likely alienate rather than woo business communities across export-oriented industries in the Global South.
Secondly, a China policy agenda might be characterized by the contradiction of framing competition with China regarding authoritarianism versus democracy while being driven by Trump’s own “strongmanship” at home. Paradoxically, the latter may indeed appeal to some of Trump’s autocratic counterparts across the Global South, especially if face time with the president can be translated into potentially lucrative or desirable policy consequences such as large arms sales that benefit from Trump’s enhanced interpretation of executive prowess and hard power.
Lastly, Trump’s approach to China will be mediated by the trade-off between articulating a longer-term perspective for achieving a “great” America and the shorter-term considerations of his political world centered around nobody except himself. However, in contrast to his first term, Trump will inherit two major wars reverberating across the Global South.
While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine plays out on the eastern territory of the country, it is the expanding conflict in the Middle East that the new administration will inevitably have to deal with. The situation in Gaza, in particular, will test Trump’s ability to bridge the gap between a president keen on supporting Netanyahu’s war efforts and one quick to dismiss the Biden administration’s handling of the crisis.
It’s still early days in terms of understanding what a second Trump presidency will mean for U.S.-China relations and competition across the Global South. What appears certain, however, is that any approach to China or strategic competition under Trump will be shaped by some of the above contradictions that characterize the MAGA movement’s approaches to American grand strategy.
And while Trump seems to believe that his erratic approach to foreign policy could be a strength rather than a weakness in confronting Beijing, countries needing some degree of policy continuity to implement development agendas may well disagree. It thus remains to be seen whether the next president’s notorious unpredictability really will be a trump card or whether internal contradictions will hamstring Washington’s ability to compete effectively.
Chris Alden is the director at LSE IDEAS. Lukas Fiala is the head of China Foresight, and Felix Brender is a project associate at China Foresight.
