Bulwark Takes - Trump Did the Impossible! Trade War Makes Japan and Korea Cozy up to China

Episode Date: March 31, 2025

Donald Trump's aggressive "America First" tariff policies are reshaping international relations, pushing key U.S. allies like Japan and South Korea to reconsider their economic ties and potentially align closer with China.

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guides you, but keeps you in the driver's seat. Manage your business from one dashboard and keep it growing with built-in marketing features. It's time to turn your daydream into your dream job. Go to Wix.com. Hi, I'm Andrew Egger with The Bulwark. Donald Trump's elbows first, America first tariff regime is causing waves all around the world, creating some interesting, strange, unusual, maybe alarming bedfellows in how other countries are choosing to respond to us and choosing to grapple with kind of America's hot new look on the world stage. I'm joined today to talk through some of this stuff by Michael Mazza of the Project 2049 Institute, a great China expert who we're glad to have, and my buddy, my colleague Ben Parker at the Bulwark, who knows a lot about China too,

as far as I've ever been able to tell. So thanks guys for coming on. Of course, happy to be here. Let's just talk about this. The headline today, this is coming out of kind of coming out of Reuters. And and it's it's a little bit, you know, maybe grain of salt stuff, because these are reports that are coming out of state run media in China. But the headline alarming news is is this China, Japan and South Korea agreed to jointly respond to US tariffs, a social media account affiliated with Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said on Monday. The comments came after the three countries held their first economic dialogue in five years on Sunday, seeking to facilitate regional trade as the Asian export powers brace against U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs.

Let me just kick to you, Michael. What should we make of all this? I mean, like, how should we read this? I think it's significant that at this point in time, it is only the Chinese making this claim that the three countries agreed to jointly respond to U.S. tariffs. My suspicion is that that is not true. So if you look at the joint statement that they put out yesterday, it had nothing that even hinted at that kind of approach to U.S. tariffs. There was talk of strengthening free trade arrangements, you know, greater economic integration, economic engagements among the three countries. But again, nothing hinted at this being targeted at or in response to what the United States is doing in any way. So the Chinese are claiming we are now the big boys in the room. The Americans are gone and everyone's coming to us, which obviously is a little bit overstated. But there was this big meeting they had, the first talks of deepening

economic cooperation in years among the three capitals, two very close U.S. allies and the main U.S. rival, adversary, possible enemy. So, I mean, is there a more subtle kind of message here that we should be hearing from Seoul and Tokyo? Yes. And frankly, it's not all that subtle. So you're right. This is a reemergence of a trilateral series of talks that were last really active about a decade ago, maybe even longer than that. You know, I think it's clear to me that Seoul and Tokyo are hedging here. So, you know, we have seen President Trump have a bilateral meeting earlier this year with Prime Minister Ishida of Japan. That went well. Secretary of Defense Hegseth was just in Japan. That trip, by all accounts, went very well. very next day, we have this high level, a trilateral Japan, South Korea, China, dialogue on economic ties on trade. And I think this is very much about the United States walking away

from the free trade era that we helped inaugurate. And that's not just with this administration. I would say that goes back at least to the end of the Obama administration. President Obama was successful in negotiating a multi-country free trade agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Both Republicans and Democrats turned on it. He didn't fight for it. And President Trump withdrew us from that agreement during his first term, perhaps on the very first day in office. He prioritized tariffs over the course of his four years in office. Biden came in, and while he did not, while he backed away from some of the Trump administration's more combative approaches to international trade, he didn't himself embrace free trade. And he had no, I would argue, really no positive economic agenda for the region. President Trump doesn't have one. And so even

while South Korea and Japan are concerned about the security threats that they face from China, they're also concerned about their economic prosperity. And if the United States can't be a good partner for them in ensuring that their economies continue to grow and prosper, they're going to look for other partners. Yeah, yeah. I'm curious what you make. I mean, when you look at this sort of hedging, is this primarily just kind of overtures to China to ensure that if they later on need to really turn their back on the United States as a global trade partner, that China would sort of assume that role? Are they kind of trying to think, well, okay, you know, we're no longer in this sort of coalition where there's the free trading,

you know, democratic, liberal world, and then there's the autocrats, you know, on the other side, and maybe we're going to go into this future where, you know, if you're Japan or South Korea, you have good trading relationships, increasingly good trading relationships, hopefully with both the United States and the West and with China. Or I mean, what's kind of the what is their posture? What are they trying to signal to the United States, if anything, with all of this? So first of all, I think they're just trying to keep their options open. They're very concerned about the direction that the United States is headed in. I think these auto tariffs in

particular are frightening to both Japan and South Korea. Again, when you look at the joint statement they put out with China yesterday, there's nothing particularly exciting in there. There's nothing that causes me great concern. But I think this is a signal to the United States that they will pursue other alternatives if they have to. I think it's designed to get the United States' attention because while we just saw this Secretary Hegseth visit to the region, President Trump, as far as we can tell, really thinks about China through the economic lens and not much else. And so the fact that our two closest allies, arguably in Asia, are at least signaling that they might turn to China as a major economic partner. I think they're hoping to get President Trump to to pay attention, to think twice about the course that he's on.

I'm not expecting, again, major, major do outs, major outcomes from this, this new initiative at this point in time, that that trilateral statement was, was not particularly aggressive. But China for sure thinks it may have an opening to go further. Ben, can we talk a little bit about just the, the way this all plays sort of as, as domestic politics, right? I mean, because at least the posture that the Trump administration is striking with sort of its trade actions across the board is any kind of economic decoupling that might happen as a result of any of these things, any sort of damage that is wrought in terms of us not being able to get imports or us not being able to send exports that we would

like. It's kind of like a don't let the door hit you on the way out. We're just going to do everything in America that was previously happening in terms of trade. And so at least as a rhetorical posture, that's kind of where they've, you know, like, well, I guess if we're not going to buy, you know, Hyundais and Kias and Hondas and Toyotas anymore. That's great news for the American auto manufacturer and the American consumer who might not know what they're missing in a great Ford escape these days because they've embraced the siren song of Japanese vehicles or something like that.

How can we sort of anticipate this administration responding to signals like what we're seeing from China, Japan, and South Korea right now? I don't want to pretend to know the administration or people in there are thinking, but this seems like the kind of signal that Mike was talking about that is probably meant to be heard loudest by these sort of Republican China hawks, like the Mike Waltzes of the world. He's got other things to think about at the moment. But like a lot of Republicans, some of whom are in the administration, many of whom are in Congress. You know, Mike Gallagher, I think, is no longer in Congress, but he's leading the special committee in the House on the Chinese Communist Party for a

while. And, you know, there are a lot of Republicans who, for authentic or merely rhetorical reasons, like to portray themselves as really tough on the Chinese Communist Party. And, you know, for those of them that are serious about it, this should be an alarming wake up call. I think sort of the tragedy here is that, like, what, is Marco Rubio going to do anything? No, like, I don't know how much, how much say these guys really have in what the Trump administration does. And, you know, I think it's an interesting question of the degree to which Trump himself can really be made to think about the interconnection of economic and security issues. The central question of everyone who's thought about geopolitics since, you know, the First

World War, Trump just sort of takes the security things for granted for the most part't expect China to be a security partner. Right. And if you were in a situation where your major trading partner is not a security partner, that's never comfy. So, I mean, what's their outlook here? They're certainly not looking for China to be a security partner. Japan in particular is very much aligned with where those Republicans you point to are when it comes to China. Perhaps not as far along as the United States, but in Japan, China is increasingly seen as a national security threat. And we're seeing pretty significant responses to that when it comes to the defense bending and defense posture and the kinds of initiatives they've been willing to undertake with us, with the United States. South Korea is not quite as far along the road there. There are growing concerns about China. Understandably, their primary concern remains

North Korea. That's not going to change. They are more dependent than Japan on the Chinese economy, and so they are more tentative when it comes to aligning with the United States. But that being said, again, they are going to be looking to replace their export markets if the United States, which is a major export market for them, is not one anymore. China has been. If they can get China to, you know, to drop barriers even incrementally, that can help replace some of what's happening, you know, what's happening here. But it's unclear exactly how far China can go either, right? Whether Japanese and Korean automobiles can be competitive in China the way that they once were, just because the Chinese automobile industry itself has really taken off over the last decade. Why do you think China is kind of ahead of the others? Because,

I mean, it's easy to see like Japan looking at that kind of signal and being like, oh, yeah, this is the kind of nonsense why we don't like, you know, playing ball with China here. They're just going to like, you know, totally swerve on us and put us in this weird situation where China is trying to roll Japan and South Korea into this extra antagonistic relationship with the current trading partner, the United States. I mean, can you can you parse that out a little bit more, Michael? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would point to a couple of things. I mean, this is so classic Chinese propaganda. So on the one hand, this, you know, this this was released on Chinese social media. This may be internally targeted. This may just be an effort for China to say, look, you know, the United States is so bad. Even Japan and South Korea are abandoning abandoning the

United States to join forces with the United States. We're so great. And that just may be, you know, again, a message focused at the internal audience in China. It's also possible that this is an effort targeted at President Trump himself. So, you know, on the one hand, you would say, no big deal here. When Marco Rubio calls up his Japanese, South Korean counterpart says, hey, what's this all about? They straighten the record and a story. You know, we move on. China may be hoping that President Trump sees this story before any of that can happen and takes to Twitter or Truth Social. And it'll be a passing issue, but something that will cause trouble in those bilateral relationships as Japanese and South Koreans have to waste time and effort dealing with, turns out to be a tempest in a teapot, but they'll have to deal with it because the president has made it an issue. Now, that hasn't happened yet. Maybe it won't happen,

but I wouldn't be surprised if that's part of what's behind the Chinese effort here. It also complicates things for Japan and South Korea, right? I mean, they make this sort of very calculated messaging step to hold these talks with China just to sort of signal, hey, maybe we're looking for other new friends. The Chinese say, no, we're best friends now. You know, they're not friends with America anymore, which then means that, you know, Marco Rubio, whoever's running the East Asian desk at the State Department, has to call over the other diplomats. Maybe in public at some point they have to say, no, that story in Chinese social media,

Chinese press wasn't actually true, which then means they're sort of backtracking on the original statement they wanted to make, which is maybe they are being more friendly to China. And, you know, maybe it's a subtle way of the Chinese bullying them and just confusing the whole thing. But it kind of stinks for everyone except for the Chinese, obviously. Yeah. Yeah. Or maybe they're just having a little fun online. Right. Just just that's all possible it's all right um you know i would also just say that sometimes we think of china as um the sophisticated political warfare operators uh political uh sophisticated propagandists and sometimes they are but sometimes they can be quite ham-fisted and that that could be all that this is.

Right, right, right. Yeah, you know, there's a lesson in there for all of us. You know, you think you're posting on Twitter just for your own eight friends, your own little domestic political audience. But you never know. Twelve hours later, halfway around the world, the bulwark.com might make a YouTube video about you. I think we can probably leave it there. Thanks, Ben. Thanks, Michael, for chatting through some of this stuff.

Obviously, it's a developing story, and we'll keep an eye on it. It might be a soap bubble that pops and nothing else ever comes of it. Or maybe it's the beginning of a gigantic new geopolitical realignment. Who's to say? I guess we'll find out as we go along with the story. But we will leave it there for now. And thanks to you all out there in TV land for following along.

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