America’s foreign policy of coercion must end
Por Zhou Xiaoming — South China Morning Post – News feed
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Opinion Zhou Xiaoming America’s foreign policy of coercion must end
Trump’s routine use of threats and ultimatums in place of diplomacy may yield immediate gains, but it inflicts lasting damage to America’s global standing
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Zhou Xiaoming Zhou Xiaoming is a senior fellow at the Centre for China and Globalisation in Beijing and a former deputy representative of China’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations Office in Geneva. Published: 5:30am, 30 Sep 2026
If you want to understand how Washington exercises power in the world, watch what it does when its closest allies try to deepen ties with each other.
When EU chief Ursula von der Leyen proposed making Canada the European Union’s first-ever “associate member”, US President Donald Trump’s response was swift and blunt: “If they do that, if I think it’s at all a hostile act, I will put very serious tariffs or stop trading with Europe, on many things.” He called the idea “laughable” and Canada – America’s neighbour and closest ally – a “terrible trade partner”. In place of diplomacy, the US uses threats and ultimatums as an instrument of statecraft. Trump has threatened to seize Greenland by force, never mind that Denmark is a Nato ally. He has threatened tariffs on Brics nations if they try to create an alternative currency to the US dollar. More recently, the US State Department reportedly drafted a letter warning its partners against joining a China-led AI framework.
The examples are too many to list.
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