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.
"Democrats will take aggressive action against China or any other country that tries to undercut American manufacturing by manipulating their currencies and maintaining a misaligned exchange rate with the dollar, dumping products like steel and aluminum in our markets, or providing unfair subsidies. Unlike President Trump, we will stand up to efforts from China and other state actors to steal America’s intellectual property and will demand China and other countries cease and desist from conducting cyber espionage against our companies. And we will take immediate…
"U.S. Leadership in the Asian Pacific
We are a Pacific nation with economic, military, and cultural ties to all the countries of the oceanic rim and treaty alliances with Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, and Thailand. With them, we look toward the establishment of human rights for the people of North Korea. We urge the government of China to recognize the inevitability of change in the Kim family's slave state and, for everyone's safety against nuclear disaster, to hasten positive change on the Korean…
“Mike Pence: (32:06): They have a $2 trillion version of the Green New Deal, Susan, that your newspaper, USA Today, said really wasn’t that very different from the original Green New Deal. More taxes, more regulation, banning fracking, abolishing fossil fuel, crushing American energy and economic surrender to China is a prescription for economic decline. President Trump and I will keep America growing, the V-shape recovery that’s underway right now will continue with four more years of President Donald Trump [crosstalk 00:32:37] […]
Kamala Harris…
"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…
"Melania and I send our greetings to those celebrating the Lunar New Year.
Today, people across the United States and around the world mark the beginning of the Lunar New Year with spectacular fireworks displays, joyful festivals, and family gatherings. This is a sacred time for many people of Asian descent, and it is an opportunity for all Americans to honor the important contributions these communities have made to the story of American greatness.
As families, friends, and loved ones gather to welcome the Year…
"To build on our incredible economic success, one priority is paramount — reversing decades of calamitous trade policies.
We are now making it clear to China that after years of targeting our industries, and stealing our intellectual property, the theft of American jobs and wealth has come to an end.
Therefore, we recently imposed tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese goods — and now our Treasury is receiving billions of dollars a month from a country that never gave us a dime. But I don’t…
"As part of a bold new diplomacy, we continue our historic push for peace on the Korean Peninsula. Our hostages have come home, nuclear testing has stopped, and there has not been a missile launch in 15 months. If I had not been elected President of the United States, we would right now, in my opinion, be in a major war with North Korea with potentially millions of people killed. Much work remains to be done, but my relationship with Kim Jong Un is a…
"MARGARET BRENNAN: North Korea. When and where are you going to meet Kim Jong Un?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I won't tell you yet, but you'll be finding out probably State of the Union or shortly before. But the meeting is set. He's looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to it. We've made tremendous progress. If you remember, before I became president, it looked like we were going to war with North Korea. Now we have a very good relationship. The hostages are back. Okay…
"It’s a great honor to have the Vice Premier of China with us, and also the Vice Minister of Trade of China. We have had long discussions. This has been going on for quite some time. It will be, by far, if it happens, the biggest deal ever made — not only the biggest trade deal ever made. It will be the biggest trade deal by far, but it’ll also be the biggest deal ever made. The two largest countries doing a trade deal. There…
I will be talking a lot about reciprocal trade over the next six years. Hopefully, we’ll have it done in two years or less. And we will see deficits down to a level that would really — you know, we talk about “Make America Great Again”; we have to do these things to make America great again. Because we can’t lose almost $800 billion on trade, like has been done for many years. And it’s been numbers — they varied anywhere from $300 billion to…
"We had a very good meeting yesterday with North Korea. That was an incredible meeting. It lasted almost two hours. And we’ve agreed to meet sometime probably at the end of February. We’ve picked the country, but we’ll be announcing it in the future.
Kim Jong Un is looking very forward to it and so am I. We’ve made a lot of progress that has not been reported by the media, but we have made a lot of progress as far as denuclearization is concerned…
"Q Mr. President, what was your take from last week’s talks with China about trade?
THE PRESIDENT: We’re doing very well with China. They’re having a hard time with their economy because of the tariffs. We’re doing very well with our economy. We’re at records — our unemployment numbers just hit a record, another record. We’re doing extremely well, as a country. We’re doing better than any country right now, anywhere in the world.
China wants to negotiate. I have a great relationship with President…
"We are replacing one-sided, unfair trade deals. We have so many nations — it’s a one-sided deal. With China, every year, for many years, we’re losing $375 billion — not million, billion dollars. We’re working on that very strongly. You see what’s going on. We’re doing very well. [...] But, look, I’m not blaming them. I don’t blame China. I mean, China — $375 billion a year, we lose. It’s really more than that, but that’s like the conservative number. I think it’s $504 [billion]…
"Q Mr. President, what do you expect out of the China talks on trade this week in Beijing?
THE PRESIDENT: The China talks are going very well. I spoke to President Xi recently. I really believe they want to make a deal. The tariffs have absolutely hurt China very badly. But our country is taking in a lot of money through tariffs. A lot of money. A lot of tariffs; steel-dumping tariffs and others.
But I think China wants to get it resolved. Their economy…
"One of the other things I’d like to mention is I had a very successful meeting, about a month ago, with President Xi in Argentina. The President of China. And he and I had a meeting that was going to be 45 minutes; it lasted close to four hours. It was very successful.
One of the things I asked him to do was fentanyl, if you would criminalize it, because it’s not criminal. And China has very strong criminal penalties. It’s called the death penalty…
"I just got a great letter from Kim Jong Un. And those few people that I’ve shown this letter to — they’ve never written letters like that. This letter is a great letter. We’ve made a lot of progress with North Korea and Kim Jong Un. And Chairman Kim has been — we’ve had a — we’ve really established a very good relationship. A lot of good things are happening.
And I never said speed. Look, it’s been this way for 80-plus years. We had…
"Would-be rivals, for their part, have watched and learned, and they are hard at work developing technologies and tactics to leapfrog the United States, investing heavily in such areas as robotics, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, and quantum computing. China is making massive bets in these and other areas in an effort to surpass the United States as a global technological power. Whether the United States will maintain its edge and harness these technologies for good remains an open question. [...] Democracy is running headlong…