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…
"Q On China, sir, the new tariffs (inaudible) — have you spoken to President Xi?
THE PRESIDENT: So China is moving along. We’re doing very well. It was brought out very strongly today by a number of great economists that, because China has devalued their currency so much, that, in fact, they are actually paying for all of the tariffs. We have — in addition to that, as you know, they’re pouring money into their economy. So those two things, they are paying for their…
Q Are the tariffs that you’re planning for China still on for Sunday? Or are you considering not putting them on?
THE PRESIDENT: No, they’re on. They’re on. We’ve taken in billions and billions of dollars from those tariffs. And as it’s starting to come out, if you look at the Chinese government — China — what they’ve done with tariffs is very interesting. They’ve devalued their currency so much, which hurts them ultimately. It costs them much more to buy things outside of China.
…"We’ve put China on notice that we will no longer tolerate their unfair and abusive trade practices. And the United States military will ensure the freedom of navigation on the Seven Seas around the world. (Applause.) [...]
Beyond that, from the outset of this administration, this President also stood strong against North Korean aggression, and now North Korea is at the negotiating table. As I stand before you today, there’s no more nuclear tests, no more threats against America. Three historic meetings have taken place. And…
"Q Second to that, do you believe that China is sincere about what it said this morning?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yes.
Q Or do you think that they are just trying to calm the markets and play for time? Because our sister network, the Fox Business Network, has been told by Chinese sources that they have no plans on going back to where they were in terms of the negotiations this spring on intellectual property, forced technology transfer, ownership. So —
PRESIDENT TRUMP: We’ll see, John.
…"Q Do you still believe that the EU treats the U.S. worse than China on trade, after your discussions?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I think the European Union — and I’ve said this openly; I say it with respect — I think they’re as tough as China. I really do. I think they’re very tough. The United States has been not treated particularly well over the years. And I’m not saying that as — it should have been the other way around, but it wasn’t. I congratulate…
"Q Mr. President, are your allies pressuring you to give up the trade war with China?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: No. Not at all. I haven’t heard that at all, no. I think they respect the trade war. It has to happen. China has been — I can only speak for the United States. I can’t say what they’ve been doing to the UK and to other places. But from the standpoint of the United States, what they’ve done is outrageous that Presidents and administrations allowed them…
"THE PRESIDENT: We’re going to France. We’re going to have a good few days. I think it will be very productive seeing a lot of the leaders, who are friends of mine, for the most part. I wouldn’t say in a hundred percent of the cases, but for the most part.
And I think we’re doing very well. Our economy is doing great.
We’re having a little spat with China, and we’ll win it. We put a lot of tariffs on China today, as you…
"Q Mr. President, so taking America into a recession: Is it worth it? And do Americans need to back that up?
THE PRESIDENT: So, the fake news, of which many of you are members, is trying to convince the public to have a recession. “Let’s have a recession.” The United States is doing phenomenally well.
But one thing I have to do is economically take on China because China has been ripping us off for many years. President Clinton, President Bush, and President Obama, and…
"Q Mr. President, you keep insisting that your trade war with China — the trade war with China is not affecting the U.S. economy. But a lot of economists disagree with that. And they worry that if China goes into a recession, they’ll pull us down with it.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well — well, okay. Let me — let me tell you something. Number one, we’re doing very well as an economy. But somebody had to take China on. You know, I read and I see…
"Seventeen years ago, America agreed to give Beijing open access to our economy: We brought China into the World Trade Organization.
Previous administrations, of one party and another, made the choice in the hope that freedom in China would expand in all of its forms if we opened our markets to them, and I’m not talking about just economically, but also politically — with a newfound respect for classical liberal principles, the rule of law, private property, personal liberty, and religious freedom. We hoped to…
"THE PRESIDENT: [...] China is eating the tariffs because of monetary manipulation. And also, they’re pouring a lot of money into their country because they don’t want to lose jobs. They’re losing, as you probably know, because you reported it, but they lost over 2 million jobs in a short period of time. And they want to make a deal; we’ll see what happens. But they definitely want to make a deal.
I’d like to see Hong Kong worked out in a very humanitarian fashion…
"MARGARET BRENNAN: How would you compete with China?
YANG: Well, certainly the tariffs and the trade war are the wrong way to go. We're now entering a very dangerous phase of potentially competitive devaluations. I was just in Iowa last week and the farmers and producers there are losing business there- they feel betrayed by President Trump. We need to curb some of the abuses on the Chinese side. But the trade war is leading the global economy in the wrong direction.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So…
"Q What actions are you prepared to take to avoid a recession if this yield curve thing is really predictive?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think we’re going to have a very long period of wealth and success. Other countries are doing very poorly. As you know, China is doing very, very poorly. The tariffs have really bitten into China. They haven’t bitten into us at all — except for the reporters that want to make it look that way, but they don’t understand what’s happening.
…"THE PRESIDENT: The stock market continues to do very well. We have very, very strong numbers. We have a lot of artificial numbers from other countries because they’re all devaluing their currencies. They’re really doing things that aren’t very good for their countries, in my opinion. But, short term, it’s very good for their countries. Long term, possibly not.
And we’re not following suit. We have a Fed that decides not to cut interest rates, which is a very bad thing. Because, right now, we…
"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 —…