Trump's South Korea tariff threats and

when he goes too far and that's my

problem that it's it's not so much what

Trump says, it's how he says it and then

tries to enforce it because he's now

targeting Seol and Soul which has been

nothing but absolutely loyal and

dependable as an ally to the US. Same

with Japan. You mentioned them earlier.

What's your take away from that?

>> From the perspective of American

conservatives, the way that the European

countries have governed themselves on a

variety of issues has been downright

baffling over the last few years. the

Europeans not reaching their defense

targets. And we've seen that in several

European countries over the years. Some

of them are better than others. And then

to get to the South Korea point, Trump's

tariff threats and the broader tension

between the US and South Korea. The

South Koreans promised to invest 350

billion into the United States when we

were negotiating with them. And so far,

the South Korean legislature hasn't

fully ratified that deal yet. And so

Trump has been pretty upset about that.

He was saying that he was going to

tariff them more the legislative process

in Korea. There's been some frustration

in the US business community because the

Korean government has launched a

full-scale targeting campaign against

Kong which is basically the Amazon of

South Korea.

>> This is the Global Gambit. How's it

going everyone? Welcome back to the

program where today I am speaking with

James Lynch. He's a news writer for the

National Review, a right-leaning

magazine in the United States. And well,

he like myself is a local somewhat to

the blob or to the DMV area. Having been

there nearly six years myself, it's nice

to be in touch with someone who I think

can get some of the jokes that well or

maybe I'll mention, but still we're

going to be talking about a multitude of

different things. Primarily on the angle

of China given some interesting articles

that James has written and well right

now because the British are in China,

the French have been in China, the

Germans are going to China. And all of

this, of course, happening in the

backdrop of Trump's continued

frustrations of um well, different

countries willing to diversify away from

the United States. Lots more of that

coming up. But James, welcome to the

show. I think the first question I have

for you is somewhat based on an article

I wrote on Substack just recently, which

is sort of where is China right now?

Because relative to a lot of other

players we're seeing in the geopolitical

sphere, China's quite quiet. maybe are

they just sort of sitting back and

letting things play out because they

don't need to do anything or what's your

thoughts?

>> Yeah, so thanks for having me on. I'm

excited to talk about this stuff. China

has been in the news a lot recently and

I've been covering that for national

review a decent amount, especially given

everything that President Trump is doing

on an international level. China

definitely seems like it's been a little

quieter than the United States or some

other countries in the geopolitical

realm, but it's definitely not all fun

and games and all quiet. There was a lot

of buzz recently about Xiinping firing

basically his top general and

investigating him for alleged

corruption. There's a huge Wall Street

Journal story about that. There's been a

lot of saber rattling between China and

Japan over Taiwan and just security in

Southeast Asia. And so I definitely

don't think it's a quiet time

necessarily for China. It's China seems

like it's a little bit less active

internationally than the United States

right now to say the least. You know,

China isn't overthrowing any regimes in

Latin America or anything like that, but

it's definitely not all peace and quiet

over there. There's still plenty going

on in Southeast Asia.

Yeah, you've you've written some

interesting pieces about sort of what

China's been doing when it comes to like

Tik Tok and there's been concerns about

sort of more hawkish people, should we

say, around national security for the

US. So, what do you think China's

actually up to in this regard?

>> Yeah. So the United States passed

legislation last in 2024 now that

required Tik Tok's parent company Bite

Dance which is a China based company to

sell its US operation to an American

group of investors. This was bipartisan

legislation. There's a lot of national

security concerns related to the content

on Tik Tok and the Chinese Communist

Party's impact on the recommendation

algorithm. If you use Tik Tok, you'll

know that the way the platform works is

the recommendation algorithm feeds you

short form video content and it's really

an incredibly potent technology. I

personally am not on Tik Tok because of

that, but I do use the Instagram version

which is pretty similar and it's it's

quite remarkable how potent the

technology is. So, President Trump when

he came into office repeatedly delayed

enforcement of the Tik Tok ban. It was

supposed to go into effect in January of

2025.

But Trump decided not to enforce it and

the US and the investors were

negotiating for a while on this subject.

But only in the last month or so did a

deal really come together. And as you

said, China hawks were very concerned

about the specific terms of the deal

because bite dance retained almost 20%

of the US operation and the executive

from Tik Tok who was picked to run it

was already part of the company and so

China hawks feel like this is a huge win

for China. Obviously, the Chinese

government approved of this deal. So,

there's a lot of concern about it given

the fact that Trump has been in many

respects much softer in China this time

around and China still could potentially

use Tik Tok as a vehicle for influence.

There was one impactful study out of

Ruters University that showed pretty

definitively that Tik Tok was boosting

content favorable to the Chinese

Communist Party's geopolitical aims. And

so, there's plenty of concern about Tik

Tok. It remains to be seen how things

are going, but initially there were

people on the US left who were claiming

that Tik Tok was censoring things that

were

>> negative to Trump now that the US bought

>> now that the US investors have a

controlling share in the the US

operation of Tik Tok. But, you know, the

platform was denying that and I think we

would have to see more evidence to

definitively say that was going on. But

yes, there's a lot of concern about the

existing stake that bite dance still has

in the US operation of Tik Tok. And I

think just to drive home the point too,

the Tik Tok conversation goes far beyond

China in the sense that there's an

entire

there are several lawsuits about the

addictiveness of Tik Tok and what it

does to mental health and there's an

entire group of people who are very

concerned about that. And so I think you

know the Tik Tok question is not going

away anytime soon especially if we get

into a situation where tensions between

the US and China escalate again. But do

you not think that there's a degree of

um inconsistency with Trump's foreign

policy or decision making over China

because he he makes a lot of strong

statements but then he tends to back

out. Taco seems to be very applicable to

his well to the China file right versus

other countries where he's more willing

to follow through. So is this just a

case of strong words but weak action or

no action?

>> You're correct. There's been a lot of

inconsistency from Trump over the years

on China more broadly and Tik Tok

specifically. During his first term,

Trump took a very hard stand against Tik

Tok and he tried to he tried to

basically do what ended up happening

with Tik Tok through an executive order

and it didn't work. But obviously this

time there was congressional legislation

that the Supreme Court upheld 90. So

>> Oh wow. Okay.

>> It went through the appropriate channels

this time around. I do bring that up

from Trump's first term to say that his

view on this topic changed a lot

>> when the Tik Tok legislation was going

through in 2024. Trump was obviously he

was campaigning, he was running for

another term and Trump came out and said

that passing the legislation would be

bad because it would benefit Meta. What

Trump didn't say was that he was

receiving political donations from one

of Tik Tok's top US investors at the

time and that might have played a role

in changing his mind. I think another

thing that impacted Trump's perspective

was that Trump actually does very well

on the short form side of things. Like

Trump is a very memeable figure. He has

a lot of memorable oneliners. And so

there are an endless amount of Trump

edits that circulate on these short-term

video platforms that make him look good.

Trump has a large following on social

media across the board. And so his

position on this changed a lot from

being somebody who was really hawkish on

this issue when people weren't to being

somebody who was very dovish on this

issue when actually Democrats and

Republicans alike came around to Trump's

original position.

>> So one of the things I'm interested in

is obviously you write for a more

rightleaning publication. I try to

diversify between well within reason on

both sides of the spectrum but like from

your perspective and your viewer

readership or audience like what's the

what's the views of Trump's approach to

China second time around or just more

broadly like is it supported is it

frustration with his inconsistency how

would you summarize people's views be

that in DC or the general audience

>> so I hesitate to speak entirely for the

audience

But from the DC foreign policy

perspective, it does seem like China

hawks are on the losing end of a lot of

debates in Trump's second term. A very

clear example was Trump's recent

announcement that Nvidia was going to be

allowed to sell one of its more advanced

AI chip models in China. That was an

issue that China hawks were very upset

about.

>> And Nvidia's argument was that it's not

selling its most advanced chip. But

there was a report from a very credible

think tank called the Institute for

Progress that

>> suggested Trump allowing Nvidia to sell

one of its more advanced chip models in

China was going to accelerate China's

chip development process and help China

get much closer to where the United

States is on this. And so that was a big

loss for China hawks. Trump has floated

increasing the number of visas for

Chinese nationals to study at US

universities. I think he floated the

number of 600,000 which would be a major

increase from what it is right now.

Chinese nationals at US universities

they they pay full tuition and so they

are heavily courted by these schools and

they do help subsidize people like

myself who receive significant financial

aid when we went to college. So the

universities benefit a lot from having

them. But there are serious national

security concerns when it comes to

potential espionage and theft of

research and US tech secrets. And so

China hawks were upset about that too

because allowing much more international

students to come in particularly from an

adversarial nation like China kind of

flies in the face of Trump's America

first positioning over the years. So

those are two cases where China hawks

really on the losing end. We already

discussed the Tik Tok situation. And

then when it comes to tariffs, of

course, Trump has created kind of random

across the board tariffs on countries

around the world, but he's also

specifically talked about tariffing

China at extremely high rates. They have

gone back and forth in negotiations and

the tariffs have been lowered and the US

and China have announced certain trade

frameworks. But I think from the China

hawk perspective, the problem with the

tariffs wasn't necessarily that Trump

was trying to change the US trade

relationship with China. The issue is

just that it wasn't really being done in

a strategic and methodical way that

targeted certain important sectors. It

was much more random across the board

kind of tariffs that would have negative

impacts on American consumers more

broadly.

>> Yeah, it strikes me as very strange in

some ways, isn't it? Trump's always

emphasized

America first. And whilst he puts

policies in place that prevent or

severely reduce the access of certain

nations, the one country that genuinely

seems like a major risk, systemic risk,

is suddenly like, "Oh, no, come on in.

Like, we'll give you even more." And I'm

speaking from a firsthand experience

both from being in the UK where we've

had what's known as as influencer agents

advising you know senior policy aids or

whatever in the UK but also when I was

at university in Australia there was a

uh professor who was actually a what's

the word like a like a sleeper agent for

the the CCP. He was there teaching

courses on Southeast Asian politics and

trying to influence the mindsets of

Australian students to be more

sympathetic or dovish towards China. So

it it's pretty crazy there and and and I

guess like what does that leave in the

sense of people's confidence of Trump

going forward in because he's still got

three years, right? So do you have a

sense on the ground and do you see what

things are like?

>> I think Trump is just incredibly

unpredictable. We don't really know when

we wake up in the morning where he's

going to be on certain issues or which

advisers are going to have more

influence over him than other ones are.

So it just makes things really difficult

to forecast for people like me who are

in the media or if you're a policy

maker, but especially if you're a US

business owner, having a president who

makes announcements one day and then

completely contradictory announcements 2

or 3 days later is is just a really

difficult situation to have to deal with

because we all have to make decisions

decisions now that have an impact in the

future. And if if you're a business and

you're considering whether to export to

certain countries or not, or you're

looking at investing in new sectors or

anything of the sort, when the business

climate is being impacted by a

completely unpredictable person, it's

just really difficult to make any kind

of decision at all. And that's not just

in the context of tariffs on China. I

think it's just in general. Like we just

don't really know what Trump is going to

be saying or focusing on on any

particular day. So it's like it's really

difficult to calculate and forecast

future. As you said though, we have

three years left of Trump, but things

will probably look a lot different at

this time next year if the midterm

elections are successful for Democrats

in reclaiming the House. So we only

really have one year left of Trump being

able to act in a way that is not really

checked by any other forms of power. At

this point, the only real institution

that has actually provided a check on

Trump's behavior has been the stock

market because Trump, like any

president, doesn't like to see the stock

market going down. But next year, when

Democrats have the House, presumably, we

don't know for sure, but presumably, if

the midterms go as the midterms have

gone in eras past, the Democrats will

retake the House Representatives and

potentially the Senate as well, but

probably the House. And so, that will be

a check on Trump. We But yeah, as you

say, we don't really know what to expect

at all. There's there's just no telling

what Trump will do or say on a given

day.

>> Yeah. I mean, based on my last viewing

of the polls, I mean, the Democrats are

as bad as Trump, right? In the polling,

there's no leadership in the in the

Democrats. Uh Trump is uh seemingly

dividing the Republicans between what

MAGA like Marjorie Taylor Green Maggas

like him and the well I don't know more

establishment traditional conventional

Republicans the Mitt Romney if there's

any of those sorts of left. So I think

the midterms are going to be extremely

crazy. But like jumping abroad a bit

more, your thoughts on what's happening

right now with the Europeans in China

with Mark Carney's comments around

Donald Trump and China, like how are you

looking at what's happening there?

>> Yeah, I think from from an American

perspective, it's quite concerning that

longtime US allies are going closer to

China. But I think to take the more

charitable approach towards them, they

probably look at the US and Trump in

particular as a completely unpredictable

entity as I was just saying and they

understand that at least in the short

term trade with China can have

significant economic benefits for them.

And so I think if you're Carney or

you're one of the European leaders,

you're looking around and saying that,

you know, our longtime ally, the world's

most powerful economy and military is

led by somebody who we just we can't

really

have any idea of what to expect from

him. And so in comparison, if you if you

go closer to China, you're kind of

hedging your bets both economically and

strategically given the fact that the

regime's behavior and aims, while quite

thuggish, are also pretty clear. And I

don't think there's going to be any

instability with the Chinese regime

anytime soon. So I if you're Canada or

you're a European leader, you probably

are trying to hedge your bets right now,

particularly given the fact that Trump

was threatening to annex Greenland and

NATO. that could have potentially torn

NATO apart. So, we don't even really

know for sure what the future of NATO

holds with the United States at this

point in time.

>> Yeah. And the I think it's rather unfair

or deliberately falsified when you have

commentators on ex Twitter suggesting

that this is the capitulation of Canada

to China or the Europeans to China. any

reasonable person, I think, looks at it

more as that this is simply derisking or

in some extreme ways perhaps decoupling,

right? And a and a desire to diversify

out of the American sphere. I don't

know. You've been reporting on this. Do

you think that there is any substance to

that or is too is too much a bold claim

because the US economy is such a, you

know, staple, a cornerstone for so many

others? Yeah, I think from the US

perspective, it is very disturbing to

see longtime allies growing closer to

China, but again, it is partially a

self-inflicted wound. Of course, we do

still provide an enormous amount of

security to European countries through

NATO and through our defense spending,

through weapons agreements. We are

active all around the world when it

comes to military bases and having the

US dollar stabilize the international

economic system. And so there is no real

way for European nations to completely

decouple from the United States. I think

it'd be quite bad for the US economy if

we separated ourselves from Europe,

particularly when it comes to combating

China given the fact that we really do

need a united Western Front on that

situation. But yeah, it's it's just from

the the European perspective, you know,

I do understand why they're trying to

derisk things and why they're trying to

diversify a lot more. I think from a US

perspective, there are things that we

can do to reassure the Europeans that,

you know, we are a reliable ally and

trade partner. we're not going to be

launching wars against them. And I also

think it's important to keep in mind

that the European's number one security

concern right now is still the war in

Ukraine and the United States. While the

Ukraine issue has been incredibly

contentious in the United States, we

have provided an extraordinarily high

amount of military and intelligence aid

to Ukraine, Trump and the current

administration have spent the past year

trying to negotiate an end to that war.

But it's it's still going. You know,

Ukraine relies on an American company,

Elon Musk's SpaceX, for its internet

access. There's a lot of American

weapons over there in Ukraine. And I

think from the European perspective, if

they want to ensure that the Russians

don't make significant advances in

Ukraine, it's probably smart to at least

maintain good relations with the United

States for the time being.

And so it's it's not the kind of

situation where the Europeans are going

to completely pivot away from the US,

but I think they're they're looking

around and trying to take a more

balanced approach. And it doesn't help

that Trump is has been giving them the

necessary pretext to do that.

>> Yeah. No, it doesn't make sense to me. I

I think one of the things I have been

very understanding or appreciative of

from Trump's perspective is um I don't

know encouraging, coercing, I don't

know, pushing Western nations to

actually meet their expenditure targets

for NATO. I think it's grossly unfair to

assume this sort of reliance on the US

and for too long I think European

nations have put their focus on social

welfare and whilst certain aspects of

that are important neglecting your

defense isn't a good idea. So, I

certainly agree on that regard, but you

know, you've written an interesting

point about Trump's South Korea tariff

threats and when he goes too far, and

that's my problem that it's it's not so

much what Trump says, it's how he says

it and then tries to enforce it because

he's now targeting Seol and Soul, which

has been nothing but absolutely loyal

and dependable as an ally to the US.

Same with Japan. You mentioned them

earlier. What's what's your take away

from that? Yeah, I'm just going to make

one more point about Europe and then

dive into that. From the perspective of

American conservatives, the way that the

European countries have governed

themselves on a variety of issues has

been downright baffling over the last

few years. You talked a little bit about

the Europeans not reaching their defense

targets, and we've seen that in several

European countries over the years. Some

of them are better than others. Poland

is always held up as a good example of a

European nation doing the hard work on

its national security. But conservatives

look at Europe and they see a block that

has consistently failed to reach its

defense targets. They are baffled by the

fact that Europeans have effectively

allowed for an unlimited amount of

illegal immigration

>> from the third world into their nations.

Muslim immigration is particularly

something that conservatives see

happening in Europe and are disturbed by

to say the least. And then if you also

evaluate European energy policy, of

course it's different depending on the

country. I think France is an example of

a country that has managed their energy

pretty well with nuclear power. But if

you go to somewhere like Germany where

the Green Party in Germany and the

broader political system are opposed to

European power and Germany relied on

cheap Russian natural gas for a long

time for its energy needs. The energy

policy is another area where US

conservatives are baffled at the

European approach. And then in addition

to that, the tech right here is really

furious at the European Union's

extremely stringent tech regulations. I

think the European Union's tech

regulations and their finding of Twitter

has further poisoned the well when it

comes to how US conservatives perceive

of European policym. And so you have to

keep that in mind. The Trump uh national

national security strategy made that

really clear recently. M

>> but it is just when you consider how the

administration has treated Europe like I

can't really emphasize enough just how

much American conservatives are

completely puzzled by how the European

nations have governed themselves and

that is really a huge dynamic at play

actually and then to get to the South

Korea point I recently did a piece about

Trump's tariff threats and the broader

tension between the US and South Korea

what's been going on is that this the

South Koreans promised to invest 350

billion into the United States when we

were negotiating with them. And so far,

the South Korean legislature hasn't

fully ratified that deal yet. And so,

Trump has been pretty upset about that.

He was saying that he was going to

tariff them more because of the lag in

that process, that legislative process

in Korea. And then in addition, there's

been some frustration in the US business

community because the Korean government

has launched a full-scale targeting

campaign against Kong, which is

basically the Amazon of South Korea, to

put it simply. Kong is a US-based

company, but most of its operations are

in South Korea, and it's it's a really

important company when it comes to US

and Korea business ties. And so there

was there's an enormous controversy

involving Kong in South Korea right now.

on that has distressed a lot of American

business leaders because

Kong, US business community lawmakers on

Capitol Hill feel like the government

campaign against Kong has gone way too

far and that it it could make it

difficult for American businesses to

operate there at all, if that is a

possibility for them moving forward. And

so you have that dynamic happening in

Korea as President Lee has tried to

court favor with Xiinping and with China

and has so far been rhetorically at

least very very accommodating to China.

And from the from the Korean

perspective, you have an incredibly

powerful economic and military power in

your region right near you. And so it

does make some sense to have diplomatic

ties to China. the previous president

who was impeached and has been

disgraced. He was very hostile towards

China. And so from President Lee's

perspective, he's kind of trying to

reset things over there. But the way

that the Korean government has handled

US businesses has caused concern among

the United States. And then because of

the lagging adoption of this $350

billion investment promise, President

Trump has said he's going to raise

tariffs on them. And so now there's

tension between the United States and a

really crucial ally for the United

States in Southeast Asia. We have north

of 20,000 troops over there still. And

that's a that's been US policy for a

long time ever since the end of the

Korean War to have troops over there to

protect South Korea from its belligerent

neighbor to the north and from China.

And so, yes, at this point in time, not

only are the Europeans growing closer to

the Chinese, but the South Koreans are

>> the South Koreans are kind of taking a

middle ground position where they're

maintaining relations with Washington,

but they're also growing closer to China

at the same time.

>> Well, this is the thing, and I guess my

last question for you sort of is is on

that, which is simply you talk about it

being baffling, especially in this space

of Europe, but do you not think, James,

that the Europeans are just doing what

they consider best for their nation?

right? Isn't it sort of the Americans

don't like it if it's not favoring

American interests, but at the same time

maybe it favors German interests or

French? Right. Slightly provocative push

back there, but like do you not do you

not think that or you think it doesn't

make sense longer term because if it

benefits America, it benefits everyone?

Yeah, I bring up the conservative

perspective on Europe, not necessarily

to bring my own opinion into it, but

just to say that like there is a real

ideological divide between how the US

conservatives believe Europe ought to

govern itself, both on the European

Union side and when it comes to specific

nations

>> and then how the Europeans are actually

executing policy. Now,

>> that's fair.

>> There have been some there have been

some successful right-wing parties and

politicians in Europe that are taking a

bit of a different approach. Georgia

Maloney is she's pretty popular among

the right in the United States for

example the prime minister of Italy but

there's there's just still ideologically

a lot of frustration from the right in

the US on how Europe is governing itself

and now there's there's a real argument

to to be made that certain ideological

disputes should should not be how we

approach international affairs in the

sense that we want in the sense that we

should try to understand what benefits

the European nations provide to the

United States and what benefits they

have provided ed for a long time

separate from their domestic politics.

>> But I just raised that point to say that

you can't fully understand how Trump and

the US right is approaching Europe

without taking into consideration the

fact that most conservatives here find

European domestic policy to be just

completely misguided almost across the

board.

>> No, that's fair. I I I love Maloney. I

think she's brilliant in foreign policy.

I think she's remarkably good at keeping

Trump on side whilst demonstrating that,

you know, we can't not we can't ignore

Putin's uh threats and uh I think she's

a very refreshing well breath of fresh

air for a lack of better phrasing. But

James been an absolute pleasure. It's

nice to have a a what's the word? You

know, educated intellectual debate and

and discussion as much as just sort of

echo chamber or something. and

definitely love to have you back on in

the near future. Everyone else watching

at home, do check out James' work.

You'll find it in the description. And

do rejoin us for a future episode. Lots

coming up this year. And well, as

always, you can find more in the links

below to support me. Follow me on

Substack.