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 Should Apple be exempt from China tariffs?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we’re looking at that. And, you know, the problem we have is you have Samsung — it’s a great company, but it’s a competitor of Apple, and it’s not fair if — because we have a trade deal with Korea. We made a great trade deal with South Korea, but we have to treat Apple on a somewhat similar basis as we treat Samsung.
Now, with all of that being said, we’re doing very…
"And they announced another number this morning. That was a number that was very warm to my heart. Since the election, we’ve created $11 trillion in worth. Now, China has gone down by double that number, and we’ve gone up by $11 trillion. So when — whoever it was that was going to be President, they said, “Within two years, China would overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy.” We’re so far ahead of them right now, it’s not even close. And if…
"And I will tell you, when I signed — that was another one — Clean Waters of the United States — well, the Paris Accord, too — and I said, “This is going to take guts.” I just closed my eyes and I signed it. (Laughter.) I got one day of a big hit from some of the radical-left newspapers. And then after that, everybody thanks me. They thank me so profusely. You’re talking about trillions and trillions of dollars of destruction would have been…
"Q On China, can you tell me whether a tariff rollback will be part of the phase-one China deal?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, they’d like to have a rollback. I haven’t agreed to anything. China would like to get somewhat of a rollback — not a complete rollback, because they know I won’t do it.
But we’re getting along very well with China. They want to make a deal. Frankly, they want to make a deal a lot more than I do. I’m very happy right…
"[...] I come here today to discuss a subject on which much of the destiny of the 21st century will hinge: the United States relationship with China.
Since the earliest days of this administration, President Trump has been determined to build a relationship with China on a foundation of candor, fairness, and mutual respect, in order to achieve, in his words, “a more just, secure, and peaceful world.”
One year ago this month, I spoke about many of Beijing’s policies most harmful to America’s interests…
"So the economy is doing fantastically well. We want to vote on USMCA. We have other trade deals that we’ve done. We’ve done South Korea, which is a fantastic deal for us; it turned out even better than we thought. South Korea was a terrible deal. [...]China is doing very poorly — worst year they’ve had in 57 years. I wonder why. I wonder why. I’m sure you can’t figure it out.
And we’re doing great. We’re taking in billions and billions of dollars in…
"Our farmers now have been taken care of well. China has already started their purchases. There was some misreporting, which does not — frankly, I’m not at all surprised — but there’s been some misreporting that China will start purchasing when the deal is signed.
The deal is being papered right now. Bob Lighthizer is with us. Mike Pompeo is with us. And they’re going to be joining us for the discussion.
But there have been some reports that China is not buying until the…