A growing consensus holds that Donald Trump’s confrontation with China has weakened the U.S. Some China experts, like former Morgan Stanley Asia Chairman Stephen Roach, argue that the U.S. needs China more than China needs the U.S. The Western press from London to New York tells us that China has the upper hand.

That misses the bigger picture, which I link to here for anyone looking for a good explanation.

The U.S. still has the stronger hand in this new multipolarity. But that advantage is not guaranteed. It can be weakened by bullying, drifting away from reindustrializing the homeland and a prolonged Iran war that will give Beijing a better story to tell the rest of the world.

The U.S.-China relationship is still entangled, but not like it was ten years ago. Supply chains are being rerouted. Washington is less willing to tolerate dependency on China in critical industries. Beijing knows this. So does Wall Street. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce knows it now, as well.

The United States begins this next phase of competition with advantages China does not have.

The U.S. gets along with most of its neighbors and remains tied to Europe. In fact, Europe is increasingly aligning parts of its trade and industrial policy with Washington’s concerns about China, and Asia more broadly. The European Union’s push for greater pharmaceutical security, through its Critical Medicines Act, is one example. Mexico remains perhaps the most important country to the U.S. in this hemisphere. They always get along with........

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