President Trump Is Doing a B+ Job With China

Now before anyone starts complaining, the letter grade in the title comes from the Council on Foreign Relations, truly one of the most august foreign relations think tanks in the world. Per Wikipedia:

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), founded in 1921, is a United States nonprofit think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs. It is headquartered in New York City, with an additional office in Washington, D.C. Its membership, which numbers 4,900, has included senior politicians, more than a dozen secretaries of state, CIA directors, bankers, lawyers, professors, and senior media figures.

That’s right, the Council on Foreign Relations says President Trump is doing a really good job with China. Don’t believe me? Go here and download the pdf and read it for yourself. This is not a joke and in fact, I am firmly convinced most who deal with China would roughly agree with that assessment. Wait you say, this cannot be. President Trump doesn’t understand foreign policy and his spouting off on Twitter is anything but diplomatic.

Well guess what, it’s not as though the Council thinks President Trump is doing a good job with foreign policy overall, as indicated by an overall D+ grade, based on the specific breakdowns below:

The grades for President Trump’s foreign policies just past the halfway point in his term are: China (B+), North Korea (B), Syria (B+), Saudi Arabia (B+), Israel (B), Iran (C), Afghanistan (B+), India (B+), Venezuela (B+), and trade (C); against his grades for climate (F), European security (D), Russia (F), policy process (F), character (F), American values (F), U.S. alliances and deterrence (F), and policy implementation (D). This report, heavily influenced by the president’s realistic approaches to China and the greater Middle East, gives him an overall foreign policy grade of D+, a substantially higher mark for his foreign policies than found on the Sunday talk shows, in the editorial pages of the New York Times and Washington Post, or among many U.S. national security experts.

So all you China people out there, step back for just a minute and list out what President Trump has handled badly with China and what he has handled well. And then let us know whether you think he deserves a B+ grade and why you have the opinion that you do. I’ll go first and say that I think the grades above are for the most part pretty accurate and I especially agree with the China grade.

We will be discussing the practical aspects of Chinese law and how it impacts business there. We will be telling you what works and what does not and what you as a businessperson can do to use the law to your advantage. Our aim is to assist businesses already in China or planning to go into China, not to break new ground in legal theory or policy.