To Beat Trump, Nikki Haley Is Trying to Speak to All Sides of a Fractured G.O.P.

Ryan Williams, a Republican strategist and a former aide to Mitt Romney who has known Ms. Haley since she was a state lawmaker first running for governor, said she “has always been a pragmatic conservative.” “She is comfortable in her own skin, and she is going to win or lose based on her own values and beliefs,” he said. Still, the difficulty for her, as for all the candidates attempting to emerge as a Trump alternative, is that “what a conservative is has been redefined by Trump himself,” he said.…

The Rise and Fall of the U.S.-China Economic Partnership

For more than a quarter century, the fortunes of the United States and China were fused in a uniquely monumental joint venture. Americans treated China like the mother of all outlet stores, purchasing staggering quantities of low-priced factory goods. Major brands exploited China as the ultimate means of cutting costs, manufacturing their products in a land where wages are low and unions are banned. As Chinese industry filled American homes with electronics and furniture, factory jobs lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese from poverty. China’s leaders used the proceeds of…

Why Trump and the Rest of the G.O.P. Won’t Stop Bashing Electric Vehicles

Fresh off a walking tour of blighted Flint, Mich., on Wednesday, Vivek Ramaswamy spoke excitedly about a comeback for the “forgotten America” that he has made a part of his long-shot bid for the presidency. He wasn’t promising that the automakers that had largely abandoned Flint would return. “We have opportunities, though, to look to the future of a lot that we need to bring to this country,” Mr. Ramaswamy, a 38-year-old entrepreneur, said, ticking through the industries that he’d like to see help drive a revival: semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, defense…

Americans Are Losing Faith in U.S. Democracy as Far Right Revolts

There was a time, not that long ago, when the United States presumed to teach the world how it was done. When it held itself up as a model of a stable, predictable democracy. When it sent idealistic young avatars to distant parts of the globe to impart the American way. These days, to many watching at home and abroad, the American way no longer seems to offer a case study in effective representative democracy. Instead, it has become an example of disarray and discord, one that rewards extremism, challenges…

Trump Condemns Hunter Biden’s Foreign Business. He’s Quiet on His Own.

After his fourth indictment, bringing his total count of felony charges to 91, former President Donald J. Trump last week posted a video online accusing President Biden and his family of being criminals. “The Biden crime family,” he claimed, had received millions of dollars from foreign countries. “I believe we have a compromised president,” Mr. Trump said, adding: “He’s a Manchurian candidate. That’s why Crooked Joe is letting other countries walk all over the United States.” For Mr. Trump, outrage is a selective commodity when it comes to presidential families…

U.S. Seals Security Pact With Japan and South Korea as Threats Loom

The new three-way security pact sealed by President Biden and the leaders of Japan and South Korea at Camp David on Friday was forged with threats by China and North Korea in mind. But there was one other possible factor driving the diplomatic breakthrough: Donald J. Trump. While the former president’s name appeared nowhere in the “Camp David Principles” that the leaders issued at the presidential retreat, one of the subtexts was the possibility that he could return to power in next year’s election and disrupt ties with America’s two…

China Has Had a Spy Base in Cuba for Years, U.S. Official Says

A Chinese spy base in Cuba that could intercept electronic signals from nearby U.S. military and commercial buildings has been up and running since or before 2019, when the Chinese base was upgraded, according to a Biden administration official. The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence, said the spy base was an issue that the Biden administration had inherited from former President Donald J. Trump. After Mr. Biden took office, his administration was briefed about the base in Cuba as well as plans China was…

Europeans Now See Russia as an Adversary, but Not China, Poll Says

When Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany and President Emmanuel Macron of France recently made separate but friendly visits to China, it sparked considerable dismay among their fellow leaders in Europe and Washington. Especially given Beijing’s “no-limits partnership” with Russia, the efforts to treat China as what Mr. Macron called “a strategic and global partner,” rather than as a rival, were met with sometimes caustic criticism. Yet, an extensive opinion poll released on Wednesday, shows that Europeans tend to agree with them. Even as Beijing moves closer to Moscow, and despite…

Pulling the Plug on TikTok Will Be Harder Than It Looks

In the summer of 2020, in full re-election mode and looking for new ways to punish China, President Donald J. Trump threatened to cut off TikTok from the phones of millions of Americans unless its parent company agreed to sell all of its U.S. operations to American owners. The effort collapsed. Now, more than two years later, after lengthy studies of how Chinese authorities could use the app for everything from surveillance to information operations, the Biden administration is attempting a strikingly similar move. It is better organized, vetted by…

TikTok Could Be a Hard Sell to Potential Buyers

TikTok has what many Silicon Valley companies lust after: A culture-making machine beloved by 100 million Americans and deep-pocketed advertisers. That doesn’t mean they will line up to buy it. TikTok said on Wednesday that the Biden administration was pushing the company’s Chinese owners to sell the app or face a possible ban. But there are probably few companies, in the tech industry or elsewhere, willing or able to buy it, analysts and experts say. At a price of $50 billion or more — the value some analysts said TikTok…