Last Update - Thu Oct 15 2026
USU Pre-Australs 2024: Grand Final Udai Kamath Youtube Link(timestamped): HERE Here are some intuition breakers as to why countries often care more about inflicting a loss on other countries than avoiding a loss to themselves, so long as the loss to the other country is bigger. Impact 2nd Clash (2) Secondly, we note that it's very easy for him to position himself as anti-China without doing much. It's very easy for him to blaster. He's very effective at it. (4)Secondly, they say Trump is erratic, which seems like a reason why their harm will not eventuate, 3rd Clash But secondly, we would point out, uh, that, like, Trump is explicitly an America First candidate who says we shouldn't spend on other countries because it's sacrificing for other people's gain, which is exactly why he wouldn't be able to ask of his citizens to make a sacrifice of their economic well-being in order to stop China. That's precisely the trade-off he says people should not have to engage in. 4th Clash 5th Clash 6th Clash That's a set of reasons they give for why tariffs will happen. I would note that many of them are symmetric, and many of them are reasons to believe that Biden would be equally committed to tariffs. 7th Clash b)Secondly, though, even if you believe that this team demonstrates more sanctions, we point out that that doesn't matter to China. c) But secondly, these sanctions would hurt the US far, far more than they would hurt China. Why? Firstly, China has many other trading partners, far more than the US. Secondly, the tariffs would likely are often subverted, i.e., other countries like Vietnam just buy the Chinese goods and then re-export them to the US, which means the US suffers from the harm of much pricier goods that have been re-exported, but China gets all the benefits of still exporting all of those goods in the first place. So these are asymmetrically harmful. Finally, these tariffs aren't often just on China. Many of Trump's tariffs and plans for tariffs are in other countries as well, like, for example, Mexico or Europe. Notably, he has attempted to retaliate against Europe for things like digital service taxes. Those invite retaliatory tariffs that harm the US but don't affect China and, in fact, strengthen it. Weighing Secondly, the reversibility of economic harms is much higher. Like, you can have catch-up economic growth when trade is restored, but you cannot restore things like trade—uh, like, like diplomatic alliances that are very hard to build up the trust again. Finally, we point to the fact that China engaged in such substantial military spending as a reason to believe they care very much about military priorities and much less about economic priorities. We give you a bunch of reasons why Biden is terrible on foreign policy, which I won't repeat. Let's deal with the responses we get from negative. Firstly, they say that China doesn't want to win US allies. It does, when those allies are in Asia, like Vietnam, like the Philippines, but they're also in Europe. They did B with Italy. They want 5G services to sold to those countries. They don't want those countries to sanction them. They want those countries to trade with them. Secondly, they say China is anti-imperialist. Insane. Like, they make territorial claims on other countries. They're very aggressive about them. They've traditionally had Vassel States, and they often try to do so. They say you can't undo relationships in one term. They're very easy to break, very hard to mend, and very hard to build in the first place. It's the exact opposite. Far easier to break than to build, which is our case. Trump can break stuff, but he can't build stuff. Thirdly, they say Europe will do it on its own. No, it's weak in military. It won't ramp up. The US is at the center of alliances, and it doesn't have willingness. They say that China doesn't want to be imperialist. I've dealt with that. Proud to Affirm.
GOV | GW
80+
Politics
This negative team to win, firstly, you must believe that Trump would be worse for China's economy—sorry, that Trump would be worse for China's economy than Biden.
Identifies what burden Opp’s case/comparative is contingent upon
You would secondly need to believe that the harm that does to China's economy outweighs all of the other harms that we point to, that Trump would definitely afflict on the US and on his allies that China cares more about.
Why the Perceived harm to China (done by trump) isn’t enough to outweigh GOV’s case
And the only reason they really give you as to why both of these premises should be, if believed, should be weighed over the things we tell you is to say, well, like, a loss is guaranteed, whereas, like, inflicting a loss on the other person is something you care about less than a certain loss to yourself.
If the harm to other countries is greater than the harm to yourself, then the logic OPP’s case is reliant on is outweigh
Analysis
For example, anytime a country engages in war, it inflicts a loss on itself in return for inflicting a larger loss on the other country.
Anytime a country engages in sanctions, it accepts a loss onto itself in return for inflicting a larger loss onto another country. Foreign aid often involves in loss on yourself, with money that could have been spent on you to gain influence at the expense of another country, as as things like military spending in general, which is money that could have been used productively but is instead spent on the military in order to be able to inflict harms on other countries or inflict influence on other countries.
Uses analogies to prove the aforementioned point
So even though this might harm China, if it harms the US and US allies more, and it—we—it strengthens China's position on the global stage, that seems like exactly the kind of thing China specifically, but countries generally, are okay with accepting time and time again.
But let's defeat those two premises. Firstly, would Trump do more tariffs? We get eight reasons why this is true.
Typical response sequences include proving why it’s untrue, mitigate, flip, frame-out, co-opt, wash
(1)The first reason we get is that Trump is more ideological. This is, like, just untrue. Trump is a selfish actor, not an ideological actor. He prioritizes at every return what is in his own self-interest. We note he's a businessman. He has very strong ties to the Chinese economy and to China in particular. He wouldn't want that economy to be harmed, which is why he hasn't done very many things that have actually harmed China.
(3) Thirdly, there are other things you could do, for example, bans on TikTok or other things around the edges that position you as anti-China, make everyone think you're anti-China without doing anything.
(5)but secondly, does not address our mechanism, which is that you must go through Congress in order to enact tariffs. So even if Trump is a radical, that doesn't mean his actions can be surprising. They just mean they might not happen. Their response is to say you can use executive orders. Not how executive orders work. Executive orders allow the government to order various parts of the government to do or not do things that they are legally entitled to do, not to change the law on what the government would do. So you can't do things like trade wars via executive orders.
This aged very poorly…
(3)The third thing they say is Biden wouldn't want to tariffs because of inflation, but Trump would.
Rebuttal
Well, I think there's a very strong incentive for no politician to want to be responsible for inflation.
Analysis
It would be very easy to pin the blame on continued, sustained, or increased inflation on a series of tariffs that have just been implemented. Liberal media would have huge incentives to do so, and even conservative media that, for example, pays a lot of homage to free market economics would probably be quite upset. Businesses would campaign against him on this. It would be terrible.
Based on past rhetoric, revealed preferences of the actor explain why he won’t spend money abroad
(4)Fourthly, they say Trump's win will precipitate an anti-China set of sanctions from countries around the world.
Other countries would allegedly follow Trump to impose anti-china sanctions
I would say the exact opposite is true. If Trump goes isolationist, if he stops trading with other countries, if he stops offering alliances to other countries, then why would they do whatever the US wants anymore? Europe, which gains a lot from trade with China and now is gaining nothing from its alliance with the US, will be incentivized to double down on trade with China, not engage in sanctions with China? That's insane.
(5)Fifthly, they say Trump campaigned on tariffs, therefore it would eventuate.
(a)Firstly, the US Congress has a Filibuster, which means it just because you're president doesn't mean you can get things, and you have a trifecta in Congress doesn't mean you can get things through. The Democrats would be more than capable of blocking this policy if they want. The level of support would need to be very high. The factor would be inflationary is a reason why many politicians wouldn't want to be associated with it, and the fact that it would be harmful to the US economy is a reason why businesses, for example, would campaign very strongly against it, would lobby against it, and would push very strongly against it.
Filibuster: A parliamentary procedure where one or more lawmakers prolong debate to delay or prevent a vote on a proposed bill or action
Trifecta: A federal government trifecta occurs when a single political party controls the White House and both chambers of Congress (the Senate and the House of Representatives)
They say, sixthly, that he started the trade war and tit-for-tat measures might escalate the way in which these things operate.
(a)Firstly, we point out that the trade war he started involved very minimal actual disruption to trade, explicitly for the reason that his interest is not to—to—to prevent that trade from occurring.
(b)And secondly, that tit-for-tat retaliation is something explicitly within the CCP's control. So if it's in their interest to avoid the escalation of tariffs through tit-for-tat retaliation, they will just not engage in tit-for-tat retaliation and avoid that harm outright.
China wouldn’t engage in retaliatory tariffs as this would encourage a race to the bottom for tariffs affecting each side
The counterfactual would cause the same harms
He himself has incentives to portray himself as anti-China and, if you believe this team's characterization, for example, that this is something voters care about, would be willing to sacrifice and might vote on the basis of. He, as a Democrat candidate, has all the more incentive to be far stronger on China in order to position himself as definitely the anti-China candidate. He has more to prove. He has more to demonstrate that that is true.
Finally, we just note empirically Biden has imposed more tariffs on China than Trump has. Think about, for example, the CHIPS Act. Think about his bans on EVs. Think about all of the things he's actually done to sanction China that prevented them from doing things, compared to the very minimal and blustery things that Trump did.
Even if you believe OPP is correct
Firstly, because their only claim is just, like, all of China's influences downstream of having money. That's not true. Firstly, they can offer things like trade deals to other countries, and sanctions actually give them more capacity to offer trade deals because you need trade substitution to make up for the trade you lose with the US.
US imposing tariffs/sanctions are good for china because now they can form new trade deals.
Secondly, they can offer things like security and military cooperation.
e.g Pakistan, Myanmar, etc
Thirdly, often what's valuable about China is that they negotiate with countries the US won't—countries that commit human rights abuses, countries that are autocracies. Support for those countries, assistance to those countries, military assistance to those countries are valuable things in the Chinese toolkit. So they could still do plenty of things without money. It's unclear that they care most about that.
Weighing on this issue, then, why should you care less about the economy? Firstly, the scale of harms from diplomacy in the military are much higher. Things like Ukraine collapsing. It's things like an entire country losing the right to self-determination. It's things like a potential invasion of Taiwan. It's things like island chains and sea territory in the South China Sea being lost.
Revealed preferences of the actor explains why China cares more about military dominance than economy