Boosting Mainland China

In the infamous June, 2024 debate which ultimately led to the withdrawal from the presidential race of President, Joe Biden, Donald J. Trump claimed

We now have the largest deficit in the history of our country under this guy. We have the largest deficit with China. He gets paid by China. He's a Manchurian candidate. he gets money from China. We have to- I think he's afraid to deal with something. Buit you notice he never took out my tariffs becasue we bring in so much money with the tariffs that I imposed on China. he never took them away.Can't, because it's too much money. 

A few weels after Donald was (re-) elected, we were reminded

One of Trump's key promises on the 2024 campaign trail ws imposing 60% tariffs on  all Chinese imports to the U.S., a drastic increase from when his previous administration raised tariffs on most Chinese products to 25%. Trump has said that tariffs "are the greatest thing ever invented," and will protect american manufacturing and businesses. The president-elect also promised to revoke China's trade status, which was meant to provide mutual advantages such as low tariffs and other trade advantages.

God is in the details, and whatever the benefits of a less China-friendly policy than we had been accustomed to, the tariffs of the second Trump term have proven economically disastrous. But enough about  the economy! 

Recently, David Frum interviewed Phillips O'Brien, a military historian and professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews.  Frum asked his guest

If the war ends with some kind of armistice, where Trump gets some piece of paper with the word nuclear on it, Iran has effective control over the Strait of Hormuz—which I suppose it had before, but now it’s really proven that it can do it—and a lot of damage to Iran’s nuclear program and Iran’s missile program, some damage in turn to the American forces, who’s the winner of that war?

O'Brien responded, "the winner of that war is China" and when asked to explain, stated

Well, because, basically, the Chinese will come out of this as a far more influential force in the region. The United States will come out looking much weakened, with a degraded military, an inability to get what it wants through military force, and looking capricious and, in some ways, unable to assert itself over Iran. The Iranian regime will not come out of it in great shape. It’s been damaged. It has been damaged militarily. Certainly, the Iranian people will be the losers ’cause they will suffer a great deal of oppression, one assumes, coming out of that. But the Iranians would have survived, and the other regimes in the area are gonna have to cut some kind of deals with them. But the Chinese are just sitting there. They are gonna be seen [as] a bastion of stability. They’ll get a huge amount of reconstruction contracts. Their ally in Iran will still be there. And one assumes that a lot of the other powers in the region will want good relations with China going forward.

Regardless of whether the U.S. secures concessions from Iran, China will emerge the victor from the conflict, the military historian Phillips O’ Brien tells @davidfrum: “They are going to be seen as a bastion of stability.”

Watch The David Frum Show: https://t.co/KTgrYBoU1p pic.twitter.com/T1gxFL7pU5

— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) May 20, 2026

I don't know whether President Trump "gets paid by China," as he so dishonestly claimed of President Biden. And he's not quite as owned by President Xi Jinping as he is by President Putin, though he was sliced and diced by the Chinese leader last week earlier this month in Beijing.

Mainland China is the country which could use regime change. Obviously, that was not going to happen but Trump's elective war against Iran has made Beijing and Russia stronger and the USA weaker. Imagine that (militarily) Iran loses a campaign but then refuses to concede and, unfortunately, comes out the stronger in the long run. It's what apparently is happening, a scenario which Donald Trump, with his experience, should have considered before he began this disastrous war.

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