China Wins As Joe Manchin Downgrades U.S. Economy

China Wins As Joe Manchin Downgrades U.S. Economy

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) gestures outside the Senate chamber on January 24, 2020 in Washington, D. C. China had a great Donald Trump era experience. It did not look that way, given the former U. S. president's trade war, Twitter tirades and general anti-China bombast. Below the surface, though, China was able to project itself as the stabler power as Trump upended global institutions. President Xi Jinping used the Trumpian chaos to conclude history's biggest trade deal. Beijing harnessed its "Belt and Road" initiative and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to curry favor everywhere. Trump, meanwhile, did zero to raise America's economic game, playing right into Xi's hands. Now, Joe Manchin is helping to make 2021 a year that China won, too. By suddenly torpedoing President Joe Biden's roughly $2 trillion Build Back Better Plan, the senator from West Virginia is looking out more for China's competitive edge than America's. What a supreme irony. The same year Time magazine celebrated electric-vehicle pioneer Elon Musk as person of the year, Manchin's act of political sabotage made coal mines great again. Goldman Sachs was quick to assess the damage. By killing a major effort to recalibrate the economy, gross domestic product in the