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Nixon on China

President Richard Nixon made an unprecedented trip to Beijing in 1972—and changed the trajectory of U.S.-China relations

President Richard Nixon, like his arch-rival President John F. Kennedy, was far more interested in foreign policy than in domestic affairs. It was in this arena that Nixon intended to make his mark. Although his base of support was within the conservative wing of the Republican Party, and although he had made his own career as a militant opponent of Communism, Nixon saw opportunities to improve relations with the Soviet Union and establish relations with the People's Republic of China.

Politically, he hoped to gain credit for easing Cold War tensions; geopolitically, he hoped to use the strengthened relations with Moscow and Beijing as leverage to pressure North Vietnam to end the war—or at least interrupt it—with a settlement. He would play China against the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union against China, and both against North Vietnam.

He would play China against the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union against China, and both against North Vietnam

Nixon took office intending to secure control over foreign policy from the White House. He kept Secretary of State William Rogers and Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird out of the loop on key matters of foreign policy. The instrument of his control over what he called "the bureaucracy" was his assistant for national security affairs, Henry Kissinger. So closely did the two work that they are sometimes referred to as "Nixinger." Together, they used the National Security Council staff to concentrate power in the White House—that is to say, within themselves.

Ping-pong diplomacy

A year before his election, Nixon had written that "there is no place on this small planet for a billion of its potentially most able people to live in angry isolation." Relations between the two great communist powers, the Soviet Union and China, had been deteriorating since the 1950s and had erupted into open conflict with border clashes during Nixon's first year in office.

The president sensed opportunity and began to send out tentative diplomatic feelers to China. Reversing Cold War precedent, he publicly referred to the Communist nation by its official name, the People's Republic of China.

A breakthrough of sorts occurred in the spring of 1971, when Mao Zedong invited an American table tennis team to China for some exhibition matches. Before long, Nixon dispatched Kissinger to secret meetings with Chinese officials. As America's foremost anti-Communist politician of the Cold War, Nixon was in a unique position to launch a diplomatic opening to China, leading to the birth of a new political maxim: "Only Nixon could go to China."

The announcement that the president would make an unprecedented trip to Beijing caused a sensation among the American people, who had seen little of the world's most populous nation since the Communists had taken power. Nixon's visit to China in February 1972 was widely televised and heavily viewed. It was only a first step, but a decisive one, in the budding rapprochement between the two states.

Detente with the Soviet Union

The announcement of the Beijing summit produced an immediate improvement in American relations with the U.S.S.R.—namely, an invitation for Nixon to meet with Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev in Russia. It was a sign that Nixon's effort at "triangulation" was working. Fear of improved relations between China and America was leading the Soviets to better their own relations with America, just as Nixon hoped. In meeting with the Soviet leader, Nixon became the first president to visit Moscow.

Of more lasting importance were the treaties the two men signed to control the growth of nuclear arms. The agreements—a strategic arms limitation treaty and an anti-ballistic missile treaty—did not end the arms race, but they paved the way for future pacts that sought to reduce and eliminate arms. Nixon also negotiated and signed agreements on science, space, and trade.

Withdrawal from Vietnam

While Nixon tried to use improved relations with the Soviets and Chinese to pressure North Vietnam to reach a settlement, he could only negotiate a flawed agreement that merely interrupted, rather than ended, the war.

In his first year in office, Nixon had tried to settle the war on favorable terms. Through secret negotiations between Kissinger and the North Vietnamese, the president warned that if major progress were not made by November 1, 1969, "we will be compelled—with great reluctance—to take measures of the greatest consequences."

We will be compelled—with great reluctance—to take measures of the greatest consequences

The NSC staff made plans for some of those options, including the resumed bombing of North Vietnam and the mining of Haiphong Harbor. Nixon then took a step designed both to interfere with Communist supplies and as a signal of willingness to act irrationally to achieve his goals: He secretly ordered the bombing of Communist supply lines on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Cambodia.

Also in keeping with his intention to convey a sense of presidential irrationality—Nixon as "madman"—he launched a worldwide nuclear alert.

None of it worked. The North Vietnamese did not yield; Nixon did not carry out his threats; the war continued. Nixon did not know how to bring the conflict to a successful resolution.

None of it worked. The North Vietnamese did not yield. Nixon did not carry out his threats. The war continued

The president did not reveal any of this to the American people. Publicly, he said his strategy was a combination of negotiating and "Vietnamization," a program to train and arm the South Vietnamese to take over responsibility for their own defense, thus enabling American troops to withdraw. He began the withdrawals even before he issued his secret ultimatum to the Communists, periodically announcing partial troop withdrawals throughout his first term.

After a coup in Cambodia replaced neutralist leader Prince Sihanouk with a pro-American military government of dubious survivability, Nixon ordered a temporary invasion of Cambodia—the administration called it an "incursion"—by American troops.

After a coup in Cambodia, Nixon ordered a temporary invasion of that country—the administration called it an 'incursion'—by American troops

The domestic response included the largest round of antiwar protests in American history. It was during these protests in May 1970 that National Guardsmen fired at rock-throwing protestors at Kent State University in Ohio, killing four. Two weeks later, police fired on students at Jackson State University in Mississippi, leaving two more dead.

By the end of the year, Nixon was planning to finish the American military withdrawal from Vietnam within 18 months. Kissinger talked him out of it.

Nixon's chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, recorded this discussion in his diary on December 21, 1970: "Henry was in for a while and the president discussed a possible trip for next year. He's thinking about going to Vietnam in April [1971] or whenever we decide to make the basic end-of-the-war announcement. His idea would be to tour around the country, build up [South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van] Thieu and so forth, and then make the announcement right afterward. Henry argues against a commitment that early to withdraw all combat troops because he feels that if we pull them out by the end of '71, trouble can start mounting in '72 that we won't be able to deal with, and which we'll have to answer for at the elections. He prefers instead a commitment to have them all out by the end of '72 so that we won't have to deliver finally until after the [U.S. presidential] elections [in November 1972] and therefore can keep our flanks protected. This would certainly seem to make more sense, and the president seemed to agree in general, but he wants Henry to work up plans on it."

Henry argues against a commitment that early to withdraw all combat troops because he feels that if we pull them out by the end of '71, trouble can start mounting in '72 that we won't be able to deal with

In 1971, South Vietnamese ground forces, with American air support, took part in Lamson 719, an offensive against Communist supply lines on the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos and Cambodia. Since American troops would not take part in ground combat operations in either country, Lamson was considered a test (at least a partial one) of the success of Vietnamization. By all accounts, it went badly, but it disrupted Communist supply lines long enough to aid the war effort.

By all accounts, Lamson went badly, but it disrupted Communist supply lines long enough to aid the war effort

Nixon and Kissinger anticipated that the biggest threat to their plans would be a dry-season Communist offensive in 1972. Their worst fears were realized when the North Vietnamese regular army poured into the South in March 1972. Nixon responded by implementing some of the plans he had made in 1969. He mined Haiphong Harbor and used B-52s to bomb the North. The combined power of the American and South Vietnamese military ultimately stopped the offensive, though not before the Communists had more territory under their control.

The North Vietnamese were eager to reach a settlement before the American presidential election and subsequent removal of U.S. forces from the country. Hanoi made a breakthrough proposal in October 1972 and reached agreement with Kissinger rapidly.

The South Vietnamese government balked, however, chiefly because the agreement preserved North Vietnamese control of all the territory Hanoi currently held. To turn up the political pressure on Nixon, the North Vietnamese began broadcasting provisions of the agreement. Kissinger held a press conference announcing that "peace is at hand" without giving away too many details.

After the election, Nixon told South Vietnamese president Thieu that if he did not agree to the settlement, Congress would cut off aid to his government—and that conservatives who had supported South Vietnam would lead the way.

He promised that the United States would retaliate militarily if the North violated the agreement. To back up this threat, he launched the "Christmas bombings" of 1972.

When negotiations resumed in January, the few outstanding issues were quickly resolved. Thieu backed down. The Paris Peace Accords were signed on January 23, 1973, bringing an end to the participation of U.S. ground forces in the Vietnam War.

Bob Woodward has called Ken Hughes “one of America's foremost experts on secret presidential recordings, especially those of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.” Hughes has spent two decades mining the Secret White House Tapes and unearthing their secrets. As a journalist writing in the pages of the New York Times Magazine , Washington Post , and Boston Globe Magazine , and, since 2000, as a researcher with the Miller Center, Hughes’ work has illuminated the uses and abuses of presidential power involved in (among other things) the origins of Watergate, Jimmy Hoffa’s release from federal prison, and the politics of the Vietnam War.

More about U.S.-China relations

Listen to Nixon's own words

After a brief discussion of the possibility of reshuffling ambassadorial appointments in the aftermath of the upcoming announcement of Nixon’s trip to China, the president turned to the size of the entourage he wished to accompany him to the summit in Beijing.

Nixon and Kissinger: July 1, 1971

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Nixon's trip to China laid the groundwork for normalizing U.S.-China relations

John Ruwitch

It's been 50 years since President Nixon went to China, a trip that changed the world's balance of power. The fate of Taiwan was not addressed, and the issue still stalks U.S.-China relations.

Copyright © 2022 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

UC Berkeley Library Update

The Week that Changed the World: Nixon Visits China

By Shannon White

February 2022 — This month marks the 50th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s weeklong visit to China, a trip that resulted in the establishment of a formal diplomatic relationship between the governments of the United States and the People’s Republic of China.

The UC Berkeley Oral History Center’s collection contains several interviews discussing the event, as well as the political and public atmosphere that surrounded Nixon’s 1971 announcement of the impending trip. Included in these are the accounts of both Caroline and John Service, the latter a diplomat and member of the United States Foreign Service. The Services were among the few Americans welcomed back to the country in the early 1970s by Zhou Enlai, then the premier of the PRC.  

In Caroline Service’s oral history, she discusses the era of “ping pong diplomacy” in the early 1970s that occurred prior to the president’s visit to China. “We were all electrified one day. . . by seeing on television, reading in the paper, seeing pictures that the American ping pong team was going to Peking,” Service recalls of this turning point in the relations between the two countries. 

In this interview, Service also discusses the public perception of Richard Nixon at the time of the trip, echoing the popular opinion that only Nixon, as a staunch anti-communist with the support of his fellow political conservatives, could make such a move without widespread criticism. As Service says:

Now I have hardly a good word to say for Nixon. I have disliked him intensely forever, it seems to me, since ever he appeared on the political scene. Yet, I suppose that only a Republican conservative, reactionary almost, president could have done this. I do not think a Democrat could have done this. I think it had to be done.

In his oral history, Dr. Otto C. C. Lin, whose career is in Chinese technological innovation and entrepreneurship, offers his perspective on Henry Kissinger and Nixon traveling to China. When asked about the effects of the visit on Taiwan, Lin said, “Republicans were always considered friends for KMT [Kuomintang]. Hence, Nixon was considered a turncoat and Kissinger an accomplice of Nixon in betraying his friend, the ROC [Republic of China].” Ultimately, though, Lin says, “I think history would say that Nixon and Kissinger did the right thing to help open up China.” 

Cecilia Chiang, a chef and entrepreneur credited with popularizing northern Chinese cuisine in the United States, discusses in her oral history the buzz surrounding the state dinner attended by Nixon and Kissinger during their visit. “The menu was printed in all these newspapers in the United States and also the Chinese Newspaper,” recalls Chiang, “People called in. Called in from New York, from Hawaii, called me. ‘Can you duplicate that dinner? That dinner for us. We would like to just fly in just for that dinner.’”

Chiang remembers her surprise at the simplicity of the meal, stating that when she saw the menu, “I started to laugh. They said, ‘Why do you laugh?’ They put bean sprouts on the menu, because China is so poor at the time. No food, no nothing.” 

These interviews contain a wealth of insightful information concerning not just the presidential visit to China, but also the general political climate of US foreign relations in the 1970s. Caroline Service offers the perspective of a family who had by this point been involved in US foreign diplomacy for decades. Otto Lin leverages the Nixon visit in relation to the modern political, cultural, and economic landscape of China. Cecilia Chiang’s oral history provides a glimpse into the culinary landscape of China, a country still struggling with rationing and food shortages in the midst of the Cultural Revolution. 

You can find the interviews mentioned here and all our oral histories from the search feature on our home page . Search by name, keyword, and several other criteria.

Shannon White is currently a third-year student at UC Berkeley studying Ancient Greek and Latin. They are an undergraduate research apprentice in the Nemea Center under Professor Kim Shelton and a member of the editing staff for the Berkeley Undergraduate Journal of Classics . Shannon works as a student editor for the Oral History Center.

About the Oral History Center

The Oral History Center of The Bancroft Library has interviews on just about every topic imaginable. We preserve voices of people from all walks of life, with varying political perspectives, national origins, and ethnic backgrounds. We are committed to open access and our oral histories and interpretive materials are available online at no cost to scholars and the public.

Oral Histories Used Here

Caroline Service: State Dept. Duty in China, The McCarthy Era, and After 1933–1977

Otto C.C. Lin: Promoting Education, Innovation, and Chinese Culture in the Era of Globalization Volume I: Oral History

Cecilia Chiang: An Oral History

Related Resources from The Bancroft Library

Cecilia Chiang is included in the Chez Panisse, Inc. pictorial collection . BANC PIC 2001.192.

Caroline Service letters to Lisa Green : TLS and ALS, 1950 Sept.–1995 April. Bancroft BANC MSS 99/81 cz.

Caroline Schulz Service papers, 1919–1997. Bancroft BANC MSS 99/237 cz.

John S. Service papers, 1925–1999. BANC MSS 87/21 cz.

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This Day In History : July 15

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Nixon announces visit to communist China

During a live television and radio broadcast, President Richard Nixon stuns the nation by announcing that he will visit communist China the following year. The statement marked a dramatic turning point in U.S.-China relations, as well as a major shift in American foreign policy.

Nixon was not always so eager to reach out to China. Since the Communists came to power in China in 1949, Nixon had been one of the most vociferous critics of American efforts to establish diplomatic relations with the Chinese. His political reputation was built on being strongly anti-communist, and he was a major figure in the post- World War II Red Scare , during which the U.S. government launched massive investigations into possible communist subversion in America.

By 1971, a number of factors pushed Nixon to reverse his stance on China. First and foremost was the Vietnam War . Two years after promising the American people “peace with honor,” Nixon was as entrenched in Vietnam as ever. His national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, saw a way out: Since China’s break with the Soviet Union in the mid-1960s, the Chinese were desperate for new allies and trade partners. Kissinger aimed to use the promise of closer relations and increased trade possibilities with China as a way to put increased pressure on North Vietnam—a Chinese ally—to reach an acceptable peace settlement. Also, more importantly in the long run, Kissinger thought the Chinese might become a powerful ally against the Soviet Union, America’s Cold War enemy. Kissinger called such foreign policy ‘realpolitik,’ or politics that favored dealing with other powerful nations in a practical manner rather than on the basis of political doctrine or ethics.

Nixon undertook his historic “journey for peace” in 1972, beginning a long and gradual process of normalizing relations between the People’s Republic of China and the United States. Though this move helped revive Nixon’s sagging popularity, and contributed to his win in the 1972 election, it did not produce the short-term results for which Kissinger had hoped. The Chinese seemed to have little influence on North Vietnam’s negotiating stance, and the Vietnam War continued to drag on until U.S. withdrawal in 1973. Further, the budding U.S.-China alliance had no measurable impact on U.S.-Soviet relations. But, Nixon’s visit did prove to be a watershed moment in American foreign policy—it paved the way for future U.S. presidents to apply the principle of realpolitik to their own international dealings.

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50th Anniversary of Richard and Pat Nixon’s Historic Visit to China

The Education and Public Programs Team at the Nixon Library is pleased to remind you that the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) continues to be an excellent source for entertaining and historical content! Simply follow the links below for additional information.

50th Anniversary of Richard and Pat Nixon’s Historic Visit to China

President Nixon and the First Lady arrive in the People's Republic of China. (WHPO-8636-21A)

Monday, February 21, 2022, will mark the 50th anniversary of President and Mrs. Nixon’s historic visit to the People's Republic of China. Just six years after the start of Mao Zedong’s  cultural revolution , a movement intent on purging the influences of Western civilization from China, the Chairman surprised the world by welcoming both the 37th President of the United States and the First Lady.

Foreign Diplomacy

President Nixon shakes hands with Premier Chou En-lai (Zhou Enlai), symbolically ending 17 years of Sino-American tension. (WHPO-8498-17)

By 1972, Richard Nixon had already made his mark in the arena of foreign diplomacy traveling overseas  numerous  times during his first term before he visited China to begin  re-establishing diplomatic relations with China . President Nixon’s goal of  détente  with China and Russia in the 1970s eased tensions and increased dialogue between the once adversarial countries.

Pat's Personal Diplomacy

American delegation at the Ba Da Ling portion of the Great Wall. February 24, 1972. (WHPO-8548-26A)

With this visit, Pat Nixon became the first First Lady to visit the communist nation since its revolution in 1949. An astute diplomat in her own right, Pat read State Department dossiers, studied political ideologies, and even learned phrases in the native tongue to show respect. As with most of her diplomatic travels, she bypassed luncheons to visit local markets, hospitals, orphanages, and schools where average citizens lived and worked. While President Nixon spent the visit negotiating behind closed doors, it was the First Lady’s visible activities that “ were vital to the media and the public realization of the unprecedented visit’s monumental significance .”

Mrs. Nixon sampling an assortment of Chinese food in the kitchen of the Peking Hotel. (WHPO-8508-16)

Mrs. Nixon visits the Evergreen People's Commune in Peking (Beijing). (WHPO-8529-09A)   

Among the sea of muted, unisex uniforms of the onlookers and political escorts, Pat’s iconic red coat stood out. Her coat, the emblem color of China, gave a tacit nod of respect and also conveyed the  subliminal message  that the wife of a wealthy, capitalist world leader was appearing in the same clothes on numerous days.

Pat Nixon in her signature red coat on the Ming Tombs Sacred Way. (WHPO-8556-25A)

Pat Nixon touring the Summer Palace in Peking (Beijing). (WHPO-8513-27)

Visiting the Great Wall of China. (WHPO-8547-32)

Tea length, red wool coat worn by Pat Nixon during her visit to China in February 1972. Richard Nixon Estate, 2003.19.274.1-.3

Diplomatic gifts and panda-monium.

During his presidency, Nixon often gifted American porcelain sculptures designed by the Boehm Porcelain Company to heads of state. For Chairman Mao Zedong, President Nixon chose a sculpture of mute swans, the  Birds of Peace .

“1972 Press Photo Edward Boehm Porcelain Sculpture Bird.” Photograph. From Historic Images Outlet: Fall 2019.  https://outlet.historicimages.com/products/rry18325  (accessed February 7, 2022).

During the China trip, Pat Nixon toured the Peking Zoo. After Mrs. Nixon conveyed to Premier Zhou how much she loved her visit to the zoo, he gifted her two giant pandas.

“ Seated next to the Chinese Premier, Mrs. Nixon and Zhou discussed her tours throughout Peking, specifically her visit to the Peking Zoo to see the pandas. On the table in front of her, she noticed a box of cigarettes wrapped in pink tissue and decorated with Chinese pandas. Showing it to him, she remarked how enamored she was with them: “Aren’t they cute? I love them.” “I’ll give you some,” he replied, and arrangements were made to ship two pandas to the National Zoo in Washington. ”

On April 16th, 1972, Pat Nixon welcomed the furry goodwill ambassadors to Washington’s National Zoo.  Panda-monium  ensued after the arrival of Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing; the two pandas drew a reported  20,000 visitors  on their first day.

The gift of two giant pandas to Pat Nixon demonstrated “ both the political power of the First Lady and the early commitment by both nations to work together to foster improved Sino-American relations .” Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing spent twenty years together at the Smithsonian National Zoo until their passing in the 1990s. In 2000, the Chinese government reached an agreement with the United States for two new giant pandas. Mei Xiang and Tian Tianat will reside at  Smithsonian's National Zoo  until their return to China in  2023 .

A giant panda at the Peking Zoo. (WHPO-8515-35A)

First Lady Pat Nixon formally welcomed the pandas on April 16, 1972. (WHPO-8931-15 and 33)

Mrs. Nixon and a giant panda at the National Zoo on December 21, 1973. (WHPO-E2027-07A)

This book is a gift from the Director of the National Zoological Park, who led the expedition to China to bring back the two pandas.  Ling-Ling & Hsing-Hsing, Year of the Panda by Larry R. Collins and James K. Page, Jr. along with co-authors The Pandas and their keepers: Tex Rowe, Curley Harper, Mike Johnson and Dave Bryan. Published in 1973. Gift of Dr. Theodore H. Reed to First Lady Pat Nixon, D.1973.578.a-b

Museum offerings.

This Monday, February 21, 2022, is the 50th anniversary of President Nixon’s visit to China.  Visitors  can relive the historic moment, view artifacts, and explore the relationship between the United States and China at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California.

The permanent exhibit of "The Week that Changed the World" in the Main Gallery of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.

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The President in China

With President Nixon's arrival in China, a historic milestone has been passed. For the first time, a chief executive of the United States has visited the world's most populous country during his term of office. This precedent‐shattering event testifies both to a momentous change in American foreign policy and to the new stature of the Chinese People's Republic as one of the world's greatest powers. Whatever results from this visit, the mere fact that it is taking place demonstrates the willingness of the highest leaders on both sides to put aside ancient prejudices, and to begin the effort to see whether a new and mutually beneficial relationship can be forged.

Millions of Americans must have been thrilled last night as they watched the President arrive and heard the Chinese band at the Peking airport play The Star‐Spangled Banner while the American flag fluttered overhead. And though the welcoming Chinese group was small, its dis. tinguished members headed by Premier Chou En‐lai received Mr. Nixon with a cordiality that implied that they too hope to make a good new beginning in ChineseAmerican relations. The absence of any public demonstration suggested a correct but cautious approach on the part of Chinese officials.

Prudent warnings have been issued against expectations of great results from this week's talks. Nevertheless, it is self‐evident that relations among all the world's major powers, including the Soviet Union and Japan, must be affected by the fact that the leaders of China and the United States are meeting and exchanging ideas. Whether one thinks of global problems such as disarmament or regional matters such as the division of Korea, there are few issues on which better understanding between today's conferees in Peking could not exert salutary influence in the months and years ahead.

But regardless of the progress achieved in these negotiations, the visit that has now begun promises to be major and useful education experience for the peoples of both countries.

In each nation, an entire generation has been born and has grown to maturity since the last period when there was extensive friendly contact between American citizens and the inhabitants of the vast Chinese realm. The resulting ignorance on the United States side is evidenced by the fact that the planes which took Mr. Nixon, his official party and American correspondents to China these past few days were in effect air‐borne universities. From the President down, the passengers were engaged in a concentrated study session, continuing efforts begun these past weeks to inform themselves on Chinese matters about which they had earlier known little. And the reports that Mao Tse‐tung has recently been studying English suggest that a similar effort to learn about this country has been taking place in Peking.

Inevitably, the knowledge about each other that Americans and Chinese will gain in the days immediately ahead will represent only a narrow, though significant, bridge across the chasm of ignorance separating them. The two nations are too different in historic and cultural backgrounds, in ideology and world outlook, and even in patterns of daily life for full familiarity and mutual confidence to come easily or quickly.

Nevertheless it is encouraging that even the limited contacts Americans and Chinese have had these past few Months have already produced some positive results. Dr. Kissinger, for example, has made no secret of his personal admiration for Premier Chou En‐lai, while the Premier turn has paid Dr. Kissinger the compliment of terming him “a man with whom one can argue.” At lower levels, those on both sides charged with preparing for the Nixon visit have cooperated smoothly, almost as though they had been working together for a long time.

Will President Nixon get along well with Chairman Mao Tse‐tung and Premier Chou En‐lai? The days immediately ahead will answer that question. Meanwhile, through the magic of television, Americans and the world at large now have a chance to see China as it has never been seen before.

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Nixon’s China visit, 50 years later

On the 50th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s visit to China, David Eisenhower discusses the significance of the trip amid the fraying relations between the two nations.

By Kristen de Groot, Penn Today

Feb. 21 marks the 50th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s historic visit to the People’s Republic of China. Heralded as “the week that changed the world,” the trip reestablished America’s relations with mainland China after 25 years of isolation, leading to the opening of that nation to the rest of the world and paving the way to its economic parity with the West.

David Eisenhower , director of the Institute for Public Service at the Annenberg School for Communication shares his thoughts on the significance of the anniversary amid fraying relations between the two nations. Eisenhower, grandson of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and a Nixon son-in-law, offers a perspective into Nixon’s thinking.

Was the opening to China the central objective of the Nixon presidency from Day one?

In 1968, at the height of the Vietnam war, Nixon campaigned on a pledge to ‘end the war and win the peace.’ Americans generally win wars to win the peace, and so the slogan has always lent itself to interpretation and misinterpretation of the Nixon campaign, along with long-standing inaccurate claims that Nixon also campaigned on a ‘secret plan’ for ending the Vietnam War. What he generally meant—and what his audiences understood him to mean by his words—was that he would advance a strategy to ensure that, as the Vietnam war ended, the U.S. would be charting a new path in international affairs that would lead Americans and the world to a new and better place. Likewise, Nixon spoke of a ‘new structure of peace.’

Imminent fulfillment of these pledges was signified dramatically by Nixon’s arrival in Peking, which occurred 50 years ago this week. And Nixon’s 1972 trip to China was prelude to one of the most eventful years in American history.

By the end of 1972, the war was within weeks of ending. The foundations of the ‘structure’ were in place. The U.S. had obtained a shaky peace in Vietnam, forged a strategic partnership with the People’s Republic of China, and entered a period of détente with the USSR. And while these interrelated objectives had been pursued from the start, I would say that the ‘opening’ of China was the lodestar, the central and most important of Nixon’s first-term objectives. It signified that the world was transitioning from the postwar era—the Cold War—towards something different, an international system in which the U.S. would enjoy a pivotal advantage. The trip itself was a dramatic step in furtherance of the new ‘structure of peace.’

Gone, or soon to be gone, were key features of the Cold War: the division of the world into two hostile camps; chronic nuclear tensions; periodic proxy wars. Near term, the China trip formalized China’s final and formal break with the so-called Socialist Commonwealth. Long range, it pointed the way towards a multipolar order and a global economy as well as a major trading partnership between the U.S. and China.

Nixon’s trip in 1972 was world-changing. In my opinion, it stands as one—if not the most important—of a number of defining Cold War era events including the Potsdam conference, Mao’s victory in China, the Eisenhower-Khrushchev summit, the Cuban Missile crisis, and the four Reagan-Gorbachev meetings.

Did Nixon's China success ease U.S. tensions with both the Chinese and the Soviets?

Accentuating the surprise and shock value of the event, Nixon’s China initiative entailed significant risks and required careful preparation. First, it required ongoing efforts to de-escalate Vietnam, looking towards a ‘peace with honor.’ It entailed the risk of defying the Soviets who, by 1969, were engaged in a border war with China which many feared was prelude to a Czechoslovakia-style invasion of the country. Yet Nixon’s companion objective was also to advance detente with the Soviet Union. What many forget is that the Soviets spent the decade of the 1960s attempting to isolate China and to prevent anyone from disrupting their effort to force Mao and the Chinese back into their alliance with the Soviets that China had more or less withdrawn from as early as 1960. There are estimates that by 1969, the Soviets aimed as many nuclear forces at the Chinese as they had aimed at NATO. Ground battles along the Soviet- Chinese frontier began in March and climaxed that August, the month that Nixon decisively shifted the U.S. policy of not meddling in the Sino-Soviet split to one of intervening in it, to bolster China’s autonomy and independence in the face of serious Soviet threats.

Thinking can never become frozen, and leadership must constantly be regenerated.

Nixon’s ongoing effort to attain ‘peace with honor’ in Vietnam was integral to the China opening. If the U.S. was to serve the role as counterweight to the USSR in Asia, the U.S. could not be simultaneously abandoning Southeast Asia in ways unthinkable in Europe or any other theater actually valued by Americans. With the China initiative, the U.S. was committing to a major permanent role in Asia and to Asia’s future. Integral also was Nixon’s conclusion that the risks of confrontation with the Soviets were acceptable, that U.S.-China relations would not wreck but improve U.S.-Soviet relations in time. In his view, the European-oriented Soviets were not bent on war with China, despite the military buildup and menacing polemics, and that the Soviets would stand down in exchange for inducements like détente. It is fair to say that Nixon’s gamble that wading into the Sino-Soviet quarrel would not trigger war but produce lasting results to our advantage was a successful gamble.

What lessons on leadership and diplomacy might be drawn from the visit?

At times, I look back on the 1960s and marvel. Never had America’s problems seemed so grave or incapable of resolution. In the late ’60s, at the height of protests against the Vietnam war and racial disturbances, national policy was one large conundrum. The ability to move beyond the situation is an example of the political adaptability of our Republic that in most fields brings talent to the surface when needed. Meritocracy is a term that describes business, the professions, education, and politics. Looking back to my teen years, I remember the major challenges that faced the country. In the late ’50s and early ’60s, America needed leadership to address civil rights in a dramatic new way, and we found it. When Americans needed ways to end—and redeem—the Vietnam war, Americans found leadership. When faced with the problem of binding up the wounds of the Vietnam war, Americans found people to do that. When the time came to move beyond the postwar altogether, Americans found leaders to move us beyond the Cold War in every way towards a brighter future.

Likewise, thinking can never become frozen, and leadership must constantly be regenerated. As the China initiative recedes into history, it is apparent that the new policy towards China begun in 1972 yielded great benefits, but that the benefits would entail future challenges. So now we find ourselves in a competition with the Chinese.

That some day America would be dealing with a ‘rising China’ was a foreseeable long-range consequence of Nixon’s policy and 1972 trip. After all, a key perception that drove Nixon’s policy was that China was potentially great and that, in principle, throttling China’s inevitable rise was reactionary and wrong. How he came by those views I do not know, but I often heard him speak in glowing terms about China well before his trip to China was announced. Nixon’s view was that China, though devastated by a century of occupation and recent wars, would someday emerge as a major—even dominant—power. He was then more correct than probably he knew.

Nixon’s trip in 1972 was world-changing. In my opinion, it stands as one—if not the most important—of a number of defining Cold War era events.

The China Nixon visited in 1972 was a country that probably resembled the China of the Boxer Rebellion. When my wife and I visited China alone in 1975, it was evident that the country’s infrastructure was in disrepair. Most of its current infrastructure was unbuilt. Yet China in 1975 was inspiring in ways, frightening in ways, poor though not miserable. What we did notice was that the Chinese officials and people we met voiced convincing faith in China’s future greatness. In hindsight, today’s ‘rising China’ can be seen as a product of China’s everlasting embrace of that faith.

Today, as we deal with China’s emergence, the relationship stands on an entirely different basis, not strategic partnership against a common threat but a relationship on the basis of parity, either existing or soon to be. When facing this challenge, we should not underestimate American diplomacy or skill in politics. For many years before and after World War II, Americans had—or cultivated—a reputation for being novices in foreign affairs. The fact is that America has always produced outstanding diplomatic talent; several of our founding era presidents had been secretaries of state. I think that we can rely on our political and diplomatic talent to guide future U.S.-China relations in a positive future direction.

Are there other takeaways?

Another broad point comes to mind. The China opening was a leap, the product of imagination. Einstein is famously quoted to the effect that imagination is as important as knowledge, maybe even more so. Over the years, how many times have I heard Penn professors say that the university’s role is to train but also to encourage initiative and creativity, to inspire and to mold citizens who combine those traits with empathy, tolerance, and compassion? In my lifetime, imaginative leaps abound. The aforementioned civil rights leap in the late 1950s and early 1960s involved a reimagining of our legal and social structure. America’s ‘winning the peace’ in the 1972-1992 period involved an extraordinary leap in world view and strategic thinking. The creation of a post-Cold War globalized economy has involved many leaps.

Remarkable about these leaps is that Americans seem to take leaps for granted, which is also perhaps an achievement of our education and university system. Taking miracles for granted was/has been a major takeaway from my years of researching, writing, and teaching the history of World War II, an undertaking which obliged me to see things from the perspective of other countries engaged in that war. In World War II, the United States built massive fleets and air forces and mobilized 90 divisions—almost 15 million people donned uniforms in a nation of 130 million—and dispatched those forces across two sub-infested oceans to engage in decisive battles against the two most efficient regional military powers of the era. On paper, American intentions were fanciful, utterly beyond the capacity of all other belligerents at the time. Yet aware of their own limitations, our enemies expected such feats of us. We did too, in a matter-of-fact way. As he mobilized the American war effort, FDR made the war effort seem almost routine. Americans today are probably much closer in spirit to that era than is recognized. We don’t think about it much. Characteristically, Americans do not dwell on the past.

Likewise, a takeaway of the China opening is the role of imagination in thought and boldness in execution. Because Americans imagine a better world and because American institutions are accordingly organized to bring one into being, America moves forward. America has consistently produced leaders who are not satisfied with managing things but who anticipate things and who set out to make a difference. At Penn, we are surrounded by such people.

On the 50th anniversary of the long-ago opening to China, we find ourselves fortifying ourselves to face serious economic, social, and international problems. As we define and begin to grapple with these problems, we do so with implicit confidence that solutions are out there, as are the people and resources needed to surmount all challenges. Confidence and belief in the future truly define us as Americans. Confidence and belief in the future are woven into our culture and history—indeed, woven into criticisms of our culture and history. Evidence of such confidence and belief abounds in our recent history and in the China opening of 50 years ago. And so from time to time, it behooves us to acknowledge our faith and belief, traits that lead us to value ability, vision, imagination, and know-how, the capacities that have brought us to this place and move us forward, ever forward.

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President Nixon in China

President Nixon was the first American president to visit China. During his historic trip to China in 1972, President Nixon met with Chou en… read more

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How Far Trump Would Go

D onald Trump thinks he’s identified a crucial mistake of his first term: He was too nice.

We’ve been talking for more than an hour on April 12 at his fever-dream palace in Palm Beach. Aides lurk around the perimeter of a gilded dining room overlooking the manicured lawn. When one nudges me to wrap up the interview, I bring up the many former Cabinet officials who refuse to endorse Trump this time. Some have publicly warned that he poses a danger to the Republic. Why should voters trust you, I ask, when some of the people who observed you most closely do not?

As always, Trump punches back, denigrating his former top advisers. But beneath the typical torrent of invective, there is a larger lesson he has taken away. “I let them quit because I have a heart. I don’t want to embarrass anybody,” Trump says. “I don’t think I’ll do that again. From now on, I’ll fire.” 

Six months from the 2024 presidential election, Trump is better positioned to win the White House than at any point in either of his previous campaigns. He leads Joe Biden by slim margins in most polls, including in several of the seven swing states likely to determine the outcome. But I had not come to ask about the election, the disgrace that followed the last one, or how he has become the first former—and perhaps future—American President to face a criminal trial . I wanted to know what Trump would do if he wins a second term, to hear his vision for the nation, in his own words.

What emerged in two interviews with Trump , and conversations with more than a dozen of his closest advisers and confidants, were the outlines of an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world. To carry out a deportation operation designed to remove more than 11 million people from the country, Trump told me, he would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland. He would let red states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans. He would, at his personal discretion, withhold funds appropriated by Congress, according to top advisers. He would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who doesn’t carry out his order to prosecute someone, breaking with a tradition of independent law enforcement that dates from America’s founding. He is weighing pardons for every one of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, more than 800 of whom have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury. He might not come to the aid of an attacked ally in Europe or Asia if he felt that country wasn’t paying enough for its own defense. He would gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen.

Trump remains the same guy, with the same goals and grievances. But in person, if anything, he appears more assertive and confident. “When I first got to Washington, I knew very few people,” he says. “I had to rely on people.” Now he is in charge. The arranged marriage with the timorous Republican Party stalwarts is over; the old guard is vanquished, and the people who remain are his people. Trump would enter a second term backed by a slew of policy shops staffed by loyalists who have drawn up detailed plans in service of his agenda, which would concentrate the powers of the state in the hands of a man whose appetite for power appears all but insatiable. “I don’t think it’s a big mystery what his agenda would be,” says his close adviser Kellyanne Conway. “But I think people will be surprised at the alacrity with which he will take action.”

Read More: Read the Full Transcripts of Donald Trump's Interviews With TIME

The courts, the Constitution, and a Congress of unknown composition would all have a say in whether Trump’s objectives come to pass. The machinery of Washington has a range of defenses: leaks to a free press, whistle-blower protections, the oversight of inspectors general. The same deficiencies of temperament and judgment that hindered him in the past remain present. If he wins, Trump would be a lame duck—contrary to the suggestions of some supporters, he tells TIME he would not seek to overturn or ignore the Constitution’s prohibition on a third term. Public opinion would also be a powerful check. Amid a popular outcry, Trump was forced to scale back some of his most draconian first-term initiatives, including the policy of separating migrant families. As George Orwell wrote in 1945, the ability of governments to carry out their designs “depends on the general temper in the country.”

Every election is billed as a national turning point. This time that rings true. To supporters, the prospect of Trump 2.0, unconstrained and backed by a disciplined movement of true believers, offers revolutionary promise. To much of the rest of the nation and the world, it represents an alarming risk. A second Trump term could bring “the end of our democracy,” says presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, “and the birth of a new kind of authoritarian presidential order.”

Trump steps onto the patio at Mar-a-Lago near dusk. The well-heeled crowd eating Wagyu steaks and grilled branzino pauses to applaud as he takes his seat. On this gorgeous evening, the club is a MAGA mecca. Billionaire donor Steve Wynn is here. So is Speaker of the House Mike Johnson , who is dining with the former President after a joint press conference proposing legislation to prevent noncitizens from voting. Their voting in federal elections is already illegal, and extremely rare, but remains a Trumpian fixation that the embattled Speaker appeared happy to co-sign in exchange for the political cover that standing with Trump provides.

At the moment, though, Trump’s attention is elsewhere. With an index finger, he swipes through an iPad on the table to curate the restaurant’s soundtrack. The playlist veers from Sinead O’Connor to James Brown to  The Phantom of the Opera.  And there’s a uniquely Trump choice: a rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” sung by a choir of defendants imprisoned for attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, interspersed with a recording of Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. This has become a staple of his rallies, converting the ultimate symbol of national unity into a weapon of factional devotion. 

The spectacle picks up where his first term left off. The events of Jan. 6 , during which a pro-Trump mob attacked the center of American democracy in an effort to subvert the peaceful transfer of power, was a profound stain on his legacy. Trump has sought to recast an insurrectionist riot as an act of patriotism. “I call them the J-6 patriots,” he says. When I ask whether he would consider pardoning every one of them, he says, “Yes, absolutely.” As Trump faces dozens of felony charges, including for election interference, conspiracy to defraud the United States, willful retention of national-security secrets, and falsifying business records to conceal hush-money payments, he has tried to turn legal peril into a badge of honor.

In a second term, Trump’s influence on American democracy would extend far beyond pardoning powers. Allies are laying the groundwork to restructure the presidency in line with a doctrine called the unitary executive theory, which holds that many of the constraints imposed on the White House by legislators and the courts should be swept away in favor of a more powerful Commander in Chief.

Read More: Fact-Checking What Donald Trump Said In His Interviews With TIME

Nowhere would that power be more momentous than at the Department of Justice. Since the nation’s earliest days, Presidents have generally kept a respectful distance from Senate-confirmed law-enforcement officials to avoid exploiting for personal ends their enormous ability to curtail Americans’ freedoms. But Trump, burned in his first term by multiple investigations directed by his own appointees, is ever more vocal about imposing his will directly on the department and its far-flung investigators and prosecutors.

In our Mar-a-Lago interview, Trump says he might fire U.S. Attorneys who refuse his orders to prosecute someone: “It would depend on the situation.” He’s told supporters he would seek retribution against his enemies in a second term. Would that include Fani Willis , the Atlanta-area district attorney who charged him with election interference, or Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA in the Stormy Daniels case, who Trump has previously said should be prosecuted? Trump demurs but offers no promises. “No, I don’t want to do that,” he says, before adding, “We’re gonna look at a lot of things. What they’ve done is a terrible thing.”

Trump has also vowed to appoint a “real special prosecutor” to go after Biden. “I wouldn’t want to hurt Biden,” he tells me. “I have too much respect for the office.” Seconds later, though, he suggests Biden’s fate may be tied to an upcoming Supreme Court ruling on whether Presidents can face criminal prosecution for acts committed in office. “If they said that a President doesn’t get immunity,” says Trump, “then Biden, I am sure, will be prosecuted for all of his crimes.” (Biden has not been charged with any, and a House Republican effort to impeach him has failed to unearth evidence of any crimes or misdemeanors, high or low.)

Read More: Trump Says ‘Anti-White Feeling’ Is a Problem in the U.S .

Such moves would be potentially catastrophic for the credibility of American law enforcement, scholars and former Justice Department leaders from both parties say. “If he ordered an improper prosecution, I would expect any respectable U.S. Attorney to say no,” says Michael McConnell, a former U.S. appellate judge appointed by President George W. Bush. “If the President fired the U.S. Attorney, it would be an enormous firestorm.” McConnell, now a Stanford law professor, says the dismissal could have a cascading effect similar to the Saturday Night Massacre , when President Richard Nixon ordered top DOJ officials to remove the special counsel investigating Watergate. Presidents have the constitutional right to fire U.S. Attorneys, and typically replace their predecessors’ appointees upon taking office. But discharging one specifically for refusing a President’s order would be all but unprecedented.

Trump’s radical designs for presidential power would be felt throughout the country. A main focus is the southern border. Trump says he plans to sign orders to reinstall many of the same policies from his first term, such as the Remain in Mexico program, which requires that non-Mexican asylum seekers be sent south of the border until their court dates, and Title 42 , which allows border officials to expel migrants without letting them apply for asylum. Advisers say he plans to cite record border crossings and fentanyl- and child-trafficking as justification for reimposing the emergency measures. He would direct federal funding to resume construction of the border wall, likely by allocating money from the military budget without congressional approval. The capstone of this program, advisers say, would be a massive deportation operation that would target millions of people. Trump made similar pledges in his first term, but says he plans to be more aggressive in a second. “People need to be deported,” says Tom Homan, a top Trump adviser and former acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “No one should be off the table.”

Read More: The Story Behind TIME's 'If He Wins' Trump Cover

For an operation of that scale, Trump says he would rely mostly on the National Guard to round up and remove undocumented migrants throughout the country. “If they weren’t able to, then I’d use [other parts of] the military,” he says. When I ask if that means he would override the Posse Comitatus Act—an 1878 law that prohibits the use of military force on civilians—Trump seems unmoved by the weight of the statute. “Well, these aren’t civilians,” he says. “These are people that aren’t legally in our country.” He would also seek help from local police and says he would deny funding for jurisdictions that decline to adopt his policies. “There’s a possibility that some won’t want to participate,” Trump says, “and they won’t partake in the riches.”

As President, Trump nominated three Supreme Court Justices who voted to overturn  Roe v. Wade,  and he claims credit for his role in ending a constitutional right to an abortion. At the same time, he has sought to defuse a potent campaign issue for the Democrats by saying he wouldn’t sign a federal ban. In our interview at Mar-a-Lago, he declines to commit to vetoing any additional federal restrictions if they came to his desk. More than 20 states now have full or partial abortion bans, and Trump says those policies should be left to the states to do what they want, including monitoring women’s pregnancies. “I think they might do that,” he says. When I ask whether he would be comfortable with states prosecuting women for having abortions beyond the point the laws permit, he says, “It’s irrelevant whether I’m comfortable or not. It’s totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions.” President Biden has said he would fight state anti-abortion measures in court and with regulation.

Trump’s allies don’t plan to be passive on abortion if he returns to power. The Heritage Foundation has called for enforcement of a 19th century statute that would outlaw the mailing of abortion pills. The Republican Study Committee (RSC), which includes more than 80% of the House GOP conference, included in its 2025 budget proposal the Life at Conception Act, which says the right to life extends to “the moment of fertilization.” I ask Trump if he would veto that bill if it came to his desk. “I don’t have to do anything about vetoes,” Trump says, “because we now have it back in the states.”

Presidents typically have a narrow window to pass major legislation. Trump’s team is eyeing two bills to kick off a second term: a border-security and immigration package, and an extension of his 2017 tax cuts. Many of the latter’s provisions expire early in 2025: the tax cuts on individual income brackets, 100% business expensing, the doubling of the estate-tax deduction. Trump is planning to intensify his protectionist agenda, telling me he’s considering a tariff of more than 10% on all imports, and perhaps even a 100% tariff on some Chinese goods. Trump says the tariffs will liberate the U.S. economy from being at the mercy of foreign manufacturing and spur an industrial renaissance in the U.S. When I point out that independent analysts estimate Trump’s first term tariffs on thousands of products, including steel and aluminum, solar panels, and washing machines, may have cost the U.S. $316 billion and more than 300,000 jobs, by one account, he dismisses these experts out of hand. His advisers argue that the average yearly inflation rate in his first term—under 2%—is evidence that his tariffs won’t raise prices.

Since leaving office, Trump has tried to engineer a caucus of the compliant, clearing primary fields in Senate and House races. His hope is that GOP majorities replete with MAGA diehards could rubber-stamp his legislative agenda and nominees. Representative Jim Banks of Indiana, a former RSC chairman and the GOP nominee for the state’s open Senate seat, recalls an August 2022 RSC planning meeting with Trump at his residence in Bedminster, N.J. As the group arrived, Banks recalls, news broke that Mar-a-Lago had been raided by the FBI. Banks was sure the meeting would be canceled. Moments later, Trump walked through the doors, defiant and pledging to run again. “I need allies there when I’m elected,” Banks recalls Trump saying. The difference in a second Trump term, Banks says now, “is he’s going to have the backup in Congress that he didn’t have before.”

Trump’s intention to remake America’s relations abroad may be just as consequential. Since its founding, the U.S. has sought to build and sustain alliances based on the shared values of political and economic freedom. Trump takes a much more transactional approach to international relations than his predecessors, expressing disdain for what he views as free-riding friends and appreciation for authoritarian leaders like President Xi Jinping of China, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, or former President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil.

That’s one reason America’s traditional allies were horrified when Trump recently said at a campaign rally that Russia could “do whatever the hell they want” to a NATO country he believes doesn’t spend enough on collective defense. That wasn’t idle bluster, Trump tells me. “If you’re not going to pay, then you’re on your own,” he says. Trump has long said the alliance is ripping the U.S. off. Former NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg credited Trump’s first-term threat to pull out of the alliance with spurring other members to add more than $100 billion to their defense budgets.

But an insecure NATO is as likely to accrue to Russia’s benefit as it is to America’s. President Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine looks to many in Europe and the U.S. like a test of his broader vision to reconstruct the Soviet empire. Under Biden and a bipartisan Congress, the U.S. has sent more than $100 billion to Ukraine to defend itself. It’s unlikely Trump would extend the same support to Kyiv. After Orban visited Mar-a-Lago in March, he said Trump “wouldn’t give a penny” to Ukraine. “I wouldn’t give unless Europe starts equalizing,” Trump hedges in our interview. “If Europe is not going to pay, why should we pay? They’re much more greatly affected. We have an ocean in between us. They don’t.” (E.U. nations have given more than $100 billion in aid to Ukraine as well.)

Trump has historically been reluctant to criticize or confront Putin. He sided with the Russian autocrat over his own intelligence community when it asserted that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. Even now, Trump uses Putin as a foil for his own political purposes. When I asked Trump why he has not called for the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been unjustly held on spurious charges in a Moscow prison for a year , Trump says, “I guess because I have so many other things I’m working on.” Gershkovich should be freed, he adds, but he doubts it will happen before the election. “The reporter should be released and he will be released,” Trump tells me. “I don’t know if he’s going to be released under Biden. I would get him released.”

America’s Asian allies, like its European ones, may be on their own under Trump. Taiwan’s Foreign Minister recently said aid to Ukraine was critical in deterring Xi from invading the island. Communist China’s leaders “have to understand that things like that can’t come easy,” Trump says, but he declines to say whether he would come to Taiwan’s defense. 

Trump is less cryptic on current U.S. troop deployments in Asia. If South Korea doesn’t pay more to support U.S. troops there to deter Kim Jong Un’s increasingly belligerent regime to the north, Trump suggests the U.S. could withdraw its forces. “We have 40,000 troops that are in a precarious position,” he tells TIME. (The number is actually 28,500.) “Which doesn’t make any sense. Why would we defend somebody? And we’re talking about a very wealthy country.”

Transactional isolationism may be the main strain of Trump’s foreign policy, but there are limits. Trump says he would join Israel’s side in a confrontation with Iran. “If they attack Israel, yes, we would be there,” he tells me. He says he has come around to the now widespread belief in Israel that a Palestinian state existing side by side in peace is increasingly unlikely. “There was a time when I thought two-state could work,” he says. “Now I think two-state is going to be very, very tough.”

Yet even his support for Israel is not absolute. He’s criticized Israel’s handling of its war against Hamas, which has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza, and has called for the nation to “get it over with.” When I ask whether he would consider withholding U.S. military aid to Israel to push it toward winding down the war, he doesn’t say yes, but he doesn’t rule it out, either. He is sharply critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, once a close ally. “I had a bad experience with Bibi,” Trump says. In his telling, a January 2020 U.S. operation to assassinate a top Iranian general was supposed to be a joint attack until Netanyahu backed out at the last moment. “That was something I never forgot,” he says. He blames Netanyahu for failing to prevent the Oct. 7 attack, when Hamas militants infiltrated southern Israel and killed nearly 1,200 people amid acts of brutality including burning entire families alive and raping women and girls. “It happened on his watch,” Trump says.

On the second day of Trump’s New York trial on April 17, I stand behind the packed counter of the Sanaa Convenience Store on 139th Street and Broadway, waiting for Trump to drop in for a postcourt campaign stop. He chose the bodega for its history. In 2022, one of the store’s clerks fatally stabbed a customer who attacked him. Bragg, the Manhattan DA, charged the clerk with second-degree murder. (The charges were later dropped amid public outrage over video footage that appeared to show the clerk acting in self-defense.) A baseball bat behind the counter alludes to lingering security concerns. When Trump arrives, he asks the store’s co-owner, Maad Ahmed, a Yemeni immigrant, about safety. “You should be allowed to have a gun,” Trump tells Ahmed. “If you had a gun, you’d never get robbed.”

On the campaign trail, Trump uses crime as a cudgel, painting urban America as a savage hell-scape even though violent crime has declined in recent years, with homicides sinking 6% in 2022 and 13% in 2023, according to the FBI. When I point this out, Trump tells me he thinks the data, which is collected by state and local police departments, is rigged. “It’s a lie,” he says. He has pledged to send the National Guard into cities struggling with crime in a second term—possibly without the request of governors—and plans to approve Justice Department grants only to cities that adopt his preferred policing methods like stop-and-frisk.

To critics, Trump’s preoccupation with crime is a racial dog whistle. In polls, large numbers of his supporters have expressed the view that antiwhite racism now represents a greater problem in the U.S. than the systemic racism that has long afflicted Black Americans. When I ask if he agrees, Trump does not dispute this position. “There is a definite antiwhite feeling in the country,” he tells TIME, “and that can’t be allowed either.” In a second term, advisers say, a Trump Administration would rescind Biden’s Executive Orders designed to boost diversity and racial equity.

Trump’s ability to campaign for the White House in the midst of an unprecedented criminal trial is the product of a more professional campaign operation that has avoided the infighting that plagued past versions. “He has a very disciplined team around him,” says Representative Elise Stefanik of New York. “That is an indicator of how disciplined and focused a second term will be.” That control now extends to the party writ large. In 2016, the GOP establishment, having failed to derail Trump’s campaign, surrounded him with staff who sought to temper him. Today the party’s permanent class have either devoted themselves to the gospel of MAGA or given up. Trump has cleaned house at the Republican National Committee, installing handpicked leaders—including his daughter-in-law—who have reportedly imposed loyalty tests on prospective job applicants, asking whether they believe the false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen. (The RNC has denied there is a litmus test.) Trump tells me he would have trouble hiring anyone who admits Biden won: “I wouldn’t feel good about it.”

Policy groups are creating a government-in-waiting full of true believers. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 has drawn up plans for legislation and Executive Orders as it trains prospective personnel for a second Trump term. The Center for Renewing America, led by Russell Vought, Trump’s former director of the Office of Management and Budget, is dedicated to disempowering the so-called administrative state, the collection of bureaucrats with the power to control everything from drug-safety determinations to the contents of school lunches. The America First Policy Institute is a research haven of pro-Trump right-wing populists. America First Legal, led by Trump’s immigration adviser Stephen Miller, is mounting court battles against the Biden Administration. 

The goal of these groups is to put Trump’s vision into action on day one. “The President never had a policy process that was designed to give him what he actually wanted and campaigned on,” says Vought. “[We are] sorting through the legal authorities, the mechanics, and providing the momentum for a future Administration.” That includes a litany of boundary-pushing right-wing policies, including slashing Department of Justice funding and cutting climate and environmental regulations.

Read More: Fact-Checking What Donald Trump Said in His 2024 Interviews With TIME

Trump’s campaign says he would be the final decision-maker on which policies suggested by these organizations would get implemented. But at the least, these advisers could form the front lines of a planned march against what Trump dubs the Deep State, marrying bureaucratic savvy to their leader’s anti-bureaucratic zeal. One weapon in Trump’s second-term “War on Washington” is a wonky one: restoring the power of impoundment, which allowed Presidents to withhold congressionally appropriated funds. Impoundment was a favorite maneuver of Nixon, who used his authority to freeze funding for subsidized housing and the Environmental Protection Agency. Trump and his allies plan to challenge a 1974 law that prohibits use of the measure, according to campaign policy advisers.

Another inside move is the enforcement of Schedule F, which allows the President to fire nonpolitical government officials and which Trump says he would embrace. “You have some people that are protected that shouldn’t be protected,” he says. A senior U.S. judge offers an example of how consequential such a move could be. Suppose there’s another pandemic, and President Trump wants to push the use of an untested drug, much as he did with hydroxychloroquine during COVID-19. Under Schedule F, if the drug’s medical reviewer at the Food and Drug Administration refuses to sign off on its use, Trump could fire them, and anyone else who doesn’t approve it. The Trump team says the President needs the power to hold bureaucrats accountable to voters. “The mere mention of Schedule F,” says Vought, “ensures that the bureaucracy moves in your direction.”

It can be hard at times to discern Trump’s true intentions. In his interviews with TIME, he often sidestepped questions or answered them in contradictory ways. There’s no telling how his ego and self-destructive behavior might hinder his objectives. And for all his norm-breaking, there are lines he says he won’t cross. When asked if he would comply with all orders upheld by the Supreme Court, Trump says he would. 

But his policy preoccupations are clear and consistent. If Trump is able to carry out a fraction of his goals, the impact could prove as transformative as any presidency in more than a century. “He’s in full war mode,” says his former adviser and occasional confidant Stephen Bannon. Trump’s sense of the state of the country is “quite apocalyptic,” Bannon says. “That’s where Trump’s heart is. That’s where his obsession is.”

These obsessions could once again push the nation to the brink of crisis. Trump does not dismiss the possibility of political violence around the election. “If we don’t win, you know, it depends,” he tells TIME. “It always depends on the fairness of the election.” When I ask what he meant when he baselessly claimed on Truth Social that a stolen election “allows for the termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” Trump responded by denying he had said it. He then complained about the “Biden-inspired” court case he faces in New York and suggested that the “fascists” in America’s government were its greatest threat. “I think the enemy from within, in many cases, is much more dangerous for our country than the outside enemies of China, Russia, and various others,” he tells me.

Toward the end of our conversation at Mar-a-Lago, I ask Trump to explain another troubling comment he made: that he wants to be dictator for a day. It came during a Fox News town hall with Sean Hannity, who gave Trump an opportunity to allay concerns that he would abuse power in office or seek retribution against political opponents. Trump said he would not be a dictator—“except for day one,” he added. “I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill.”

Trump says that the remark “was said in fun, in jest, sarcastically.” He compares it to an infamous moment from the 2016 campaign, when he encouraged the Russians to hack and leak Hillary Clinton’s emails. In Trump’s mind, the media sensationalized those remarks too. But the Russians weren’t joking: among many other efforts to influence the core exercise of American democracy that year, they hacked the Democratic National Committee’s servers and disseminated its emails through WikiLeaks.

Whether or not he was kidding about bringing a tyrannical end to our 248-year experiment in democracy, I ask him, Don’t you see why many Americans see such talk of dictatorship as contrary to our most cherished principles? Trump says no. Quite the opposite, he insists. “I think a lot of people like it.” — With reporting by Leslie Dickstein, Simmone Shah, and Julia Zorthian

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Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit France as part of his tour of Europe scheduled from May 5 to 10. This will be his first trip to Europe since 2019.

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