Same Objective, Different Approaches: Comparing Trump’s and Biden’s China Policy

President Barack Obama called himself America’s first “Pacific president” and began to pivot the U.S. foreign policy toward Asia, a process that would have been started by President George W. Bush if 9/11 had not happened. However, it was President Trump who set the concrete goal of beating China as one of his foreign policy priorities. The Trump administration’s 2018 Indo-Pacific Strategic Framework aimed to maintain “diplomatic, economic and military pre-eminence in the fastest-growing region of the world.” Trump emphasized “America first” which was reflected in his launching the trade war with China without working closely with U.S. allies or getting them to support the policy before he set it into motion.