TPM25: Growing US isolationism threatens global supply chains: Bolton

Long Beach, California — The Trump administration’s moves to withdraw the US from long-standing alliances and security guarantees puts global supply chains more at risk, former national security advisor and UN ambassador John Bolton said Monday.

US naval power, which guarantees freedom of navigation for commercial shipping, is also currently inadequate to counter global threats, Bolton told the Journal of Commerce’s TPM25 conference here.

Bolton said Russia, China and Iran face their own weaknesses in the long term that could stem their hegemonic ambitions across the world. But the US is not currently able to capitalize on those weaknesses due to Donald Trump’s threats to withdraw from NATO and his wavering of US support for Taiwan.

“I don’t think it’s inevitable that we will retreat further,” Bolton said. “I think the answer to that question is obvious: A weaker America leads to a more unstable world, a more chaotic world, or a world where our adversaries step into the vacuum.”

Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security advisor from 2018–19, said China is gauging its next global moves through how the US responds to the war in the Ukraine. The Trump administration’s signaling of support for Russia and threats to withdraw military aid for Ukraine prod China to further its global aims, he said.

Along with China’s goal to reunite Taiwan with the mainland, Bolton said China is also threatening Japan and South Korea’s commercial shipping lanes through building military bases and asserting territorial claims in the eastern Pacific. Yet the Trump administration appears non-committal on supporting its Indo-Pacific allies against China, he said.

Bolton said Trump resents Taiwan’s leading market share in the semiconductor industry and publicly questioned the value of defending Taiwan, given its small size relative to China. Trump also expressed ignorance about the 2021 agreement between the US, United Kingdom and Australia to defend freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region.

“That has an enormous potential impact on ships that are sailing through those waters carrying commerce to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan,” Bolton said.

A direct attack on Taiwan by China is not likely as a war would destroy much of the island’s factories and other productive capacity that China ultimately wants, Bolton said. It’s more likely China would use a pretext for launching a naval blockade of the island, waiting to see if the US will respond.

‘American weakness is provocative’

Other non-US moves also put commercial shipping lanes at risk, Bolton said. The UK is ceding control of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean to the local population, which could jeopardize the future of a US military base on Diego Garcia. Bolton said ceding control of the Chagos Islands could allow the Chinese to assert more power in the Indian Ocean.

However, many of the world’s aggressors face their own problems. Bolton said Russia and Iran’s regimes have weak governance structures that could mean power vacuums once their current leaders are gone. China, too, faces a population decline and the resulting economic problems that could hinder its global ambitions.

Bolton said there’s an opportunity for Israel to launch attacks on Iran’s nuclear capability now. That would undermine Iran’s ability to support Yemen’s Houthi rebels, potentially reducing the attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

The US, though, is not well placed currently to assert freedom-of-navigation for commercial shipping, Bolton said, citing a nearly 100-ship deficit in the US Navy’s fleet. Reversing that decline and reasserting global alliances requires serious thought about America’s role in the world, he said.

“American strength is not provocative,” Bolton said. “American weakness is provocative and we’re showing a lot of provocation these days.”

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