Asia Matters for America
America Matters for Asia
Explore US-Asia National and Local Connections
An initiative of the East-West Center and Asia Matters for America partners and stakeholders
The 2020 Presidential Candidates on the Indo-Pacific resource highlighted mentions of Indo-Pacific issues by US presidential candidates and nominees in speeches, campaign documents, and debates.
To view statements by President Trump prior to his June 18, 2019 declaration to seek a second term, as well as members of his Cabinet, visit The Trump Administration & US - Indo-Pacific Relations.
"Kristen Welker: (09:22)I do want to ask you, Vice-President Biden, about China. Let’s talk about China more broadly. There have, of course, President Trump has said that they should pay for not being fully transparent in regards to the coronavirus. If you were president, would you make China pay? And please be specific, what would that look like?
Joe Biden: (09:41)What I’d make China do is play by the international rules, not like he has done. He has caused the deficit of the…
"Pennsylvania Steel raised the skyscrapers that built our cities. And, by the way, steel — steel was dead. Your business was dead. Okay? I don’t want to be overly crude. Your business was dead. And I put a little thing called “a 25 percent tariff” on all of the dumped steel all over the country. And now your business is thriving. Probably there’s few businesses that have gone proportionately up like steel and aluminum.We did it with aluminum, too. But they are doing well —…
"THE PRESIDENT: So, we’re doing very well with China. We’re talking to China. We’re not ready to make a deal, but we’ll see what happens. But, you know, we’ve been hurt by China for 25, 30 years. Nobody has done anything about it. And we have no choice but to do what we’re doing.
It’s working out very well, as you know. We called them on manipulation and they brought their numbers back, and they brought them back rapidly. And they were able to do…
"Q (Inaudible.) South Korea and Japan exports are (inaudible.)
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. South Korea and I have made a deal. They’ve agreed to pay a lot more money toward the United States. As you know, we’ve got 32,000 soldiers on South Korean soil, and we’ve been helping them for about 82 years. And we get nothing. We get virtually nothing. And South Korea and I have made a deal where they’re paying a lot more money, and they’re going to pay a lot more money…