Trump is fighting a historic clash of civilizations against China — here’s how he could win it

[Da Lat]

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Trump is fighting a historic clash of civilizations against China — here’s how he could win it


By Elaine Dezenski
Published Oct. 10, 2025, 7:40 p.m. ET




President Donald Trump walks into the Oval Office of the White House on October 10, 2025 in Washington, DC. Getty Images



The global economy is finally waking up to the risks from authoritarian economics.

As China imposes critical mineral and lithium battery export restrictions on the U.S. and the world, one must ask: Why did anyone ever trust a mercantilist dictatorship like the Chinese Communist Party to be the world’s main supplier of so many critical goods?

To make matters worse, as China limits its critical exports to weaken our defenses, it also floods the world with overproduced cars and heavily subsidized steel, shutting out market-oriented producers.

What a racket.

Of course, we are not alone.

All market economies are at risk.


Multinationals in Europe are urging the EU to address Beijing’s dumping.

As a senior executive at German steelmaker Thyssenkrupp recently put it: “We need protection [or] we are not going to survive as a steel industry.”

The Trump administration has responded to Beijing, threatening another tariff blitz, further constraining access to America’s robust consumer economy. Tariffs are today’s response, and a necessary one.


But what is the long-term solution?

This could be the defining question of Trump’s presidency, as the US decides how to deal with an ascendant China.

For decades, China has used coercion, corruption, and monopoly power to dominate global trade.

Today must mark our liberation from Beijing’s grip.

First, we need to question the premise that the global economy must be open to all nations, no matter how malignant.

Instead of boosting our geopolitical and economic adversaries, we should be shutting them out — building a Near-Global Economy that is reserved for the rule followers and market players.

The current reordering of global trade provides a chance, unseen since Bretton Woods in 1944, to build a better global economy that maximizes stability, prosperity, fairness and growth.

This requires new alliances, open markets, clear guardrails, and refreshed rules. More than that, it requires consequences. We must push out rogue nations that seek to disrupt the system and cheat the rules.

A Near-Global Economy would be a voluntary U.S.-led economic union of trading nations willing to use the power of our markets to defend our markets.

For those who agree to America’s economic and trade rules, they will be rewarded with preferential access to our trade, capital, and technology.

This economic union would be wide open to all who follow market rules but be constrained — or even closed off — to adversarial nations that distort fair competition by stealing, cheating, bribing, and bullying their way to unfair advantages.


Building the Near-Global Economy requires clearly articulating four essential principles: fairness, stability, openness, and freedom.

Fairness demands a commitment to market principles. American firms and workers lose not because we’re unproductive but because others cheat with impunity, enslave workers, dump toxic tailings, or use bribes to corner markets. China’s critical mineral monopolies are advanced not by inherent advantages but by price manipulation, while state-subsidized overproduction is pushing Chinese manufacturers to make twice as many electric vehicles this year as last year’s entire global demand.

Stability is a prerequisite for growth. When Russia invaded Ukraine, they destabilized Europe to a degree not seen since 1939. Wars of aggression, coups, state-sponsored terror, cyberattacks, and covert influence operations should all be grounds for ejection from the Near-Global Economy.

Openness requires the free flow of information. Transparent information improves business planning, reduces risk, and encourages investment. Without it, corruption and market manipulation flourish. Financial opacity, anonymous shell companies, and secrecy jurisdictions need to be shut down.

Freedom is a condition for economic strength. Repressive regimes undermine property rights and make investments unpredictable. Conversely, when reformers win unexpected elections, the Near-Global Economy should offer a pathway to full membership.


Declaring war on your customers is bad business.

China’s economy depends on market democracies like the U.S.

This week Beijing sent an economic suicide note to the world.

It’s time to build a new trade system — based on willing partners, fair rules, and clear guardrails.

Building a system that promotes these principles is how we will win the economic war already underway.


Elaine Dezenski is senior director and head of the Center on Economic and Financial Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy. Follow FDD on X @FDD and @FDD_CEFP.


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Source: New York Post
Link: https://nypost.com/2025/10/10/opinio...how-to-win-it/





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