The chances of Donald Trump finding his way back to the White House for a second term are now higher than at any previous time in the 2024 presidential race, fueling uncertainties about US global leadership and its approach to Asian countries other than China.
The Republican Party’s platform, adopted at this week’s convention, offers a glimpse into what Trump’s foreign policy trajectory will be like if he wins the Nov. 5 election.
For Donald Trump, US defense guarantees come with a price, noting that Taiwan – like Ukraine and NATO allies – needs to pay up.
“I think Taiwan should pay us for defense,” he said in a Bloomberg Businessweek interview. “You know, we’re no different than an insurance company. Taiwan doesn’t give us anything.”
Biden’s State Department pushed back Wednesday against Trump’s assertions, saying “Taiwan has been paying for its own defense.”
“Taiwan has been purchasing military equipment from the United States to the tune of billions of dollars and the military equipment they have purchased supports American manufacturing, supports American industry, supports American technology,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
Taiwanese Prime Minister Cho Jung-tai nonetheless said Wednesday that Taipei was still “willing to take on more responsibility.”
The Republican Party’s platform says in the chapter on foreign affairs that the party’s commitment, first and foremost, is to “return to peace through strength.”
Criticizing the Biden administration’s foreign policy as “weak,” the party asserts that its version will center on “the most essential” US interests, promising to make the military “bigger, better and stronger than ever before.”
It says Republicans will reinforce alliances and counter China, but adds that to do so, US allies “must meet their obligations to invest in our common defense.”
Touching on the Indo-Pacific, it says they will “champion strong, sovereign and independent nations” in the region, “thriving in peace and commerce with others.”
While China is named in the chapter, there are no references in the document to Japan, South Korea or Taiwan.
On Thursday, in his speech to formally accept the Republican presidential nomination, Trump referred to North Korea and indicated his readiness to re-engage with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un if reelected.
“I get along with him. He’d like to see me back too. I think he misses me,” Trump said.
Bruce Bennett, an adjunct senior defense analyst at Rand Corporation, said, “It is very hard to predict what former President Trump will do on any particular foreign relation issue if he is elected again.”
Bennett sees in Trump a tendency to base important decisions on personal feelings, a factor making it all the more difficult to foresee how he would deal with an issue or foreign country at any given time.
Victor Cha, a senior vice president for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, has warned that a second Trump administration would likely be “far more disruptive for Asia than the first one was.”
In his recent Foreign Affairs article, Cha said a second Trump term would not be expected to include many experienced policymakers, unlike those who helped take the edge off his unorthodox foreign policy when he was previously in office. With AFP
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