I was reading excerpts from an NPR interview a few weeks ago in which Elizabeth Warren was making very Trumpian complaints about Chinese trade policies. The interviewer reminded her that Obama had worked for the TPP in an effort to create a rules-based system that would be an alliance against Chinese militarism and mercantilism in embryo. Warren responded by saying she thought the TPP would be an ineffective mechanism to restrain predatory Chinese behavior. She had nothing to propose as an alternative.
That, my friends, is a serious problem. For all of her reputation as an intellect, Warren has not made any meaningful effort to think this issue through. She has a visceral reaction to Chinese human rights violations and mercantilist trade policy, a willingness to work with allies to compel change, and nothing more.
When you get right down to the essence of it, there are only a few ways to respond to the rise of China. You can acquiesce to it, and turn the world into spheres of influence. You can try to crush it unilaterally through tariffs and military force. You can join them, by using the same kind of mercantilist levers–primarily subsidies, tariffs, handouts to friendly countries, and discriminatory regulations. Finally, you can go completely the other way and double down on what has worked in the past: an open political, economic, and legal system with relatively low taxes and regulations; and the fair enforcement of a rules-based international system with the assistance of our friends. That was Obama’s approach.
Donald Trump apparently believes (at least on some days) that he can bring about regime change in China through the use of tariffs. He can’t. What does Warren believe? We won’t know until she actually goes to the trouble of putting her oversized brain to the problem first.