By Fareed Zakaria of the Washington Post
It’s easy to get distracted by the circus of the Trump presidency. But what is its larger effect?
- A persistent complaint from Asian countries has been that while the United States worries about the rise of China — as Pence did in his speech at the ASEAN summit — it is abandoning the field to Beijing.
- Few ideas have been as thoroughly tested through history as the notion that trade raises a country’s income and living standards. It can also create habits of cooperation, even peace, as it has done in Europe and as it might help do in Asia.
- In 1988, President Ronald Reagan warned, “We should beware of the demagogues who are ready to declare a trade war against our friends — weakening our economy, our national security and the entire free world — all while cynically waving the American flag.
