“We Don’t Win Anymore”: Donald Trump, China, and the Politics of Victimhood Nationalism

This paper analyses the deployment of victimhood nationalism towards China by Donald Trump during his two presidential campaigns and presidency. His original campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” aimed to form a sense of collective identity among his supporters by invoking the notion of American decline and projecting grievances onto a number of domestic and foreign actors. China was a recurring feature of this narrative, informed his administration’s policies, and found a home in the broader milieu of US conservatism. Trump blamed China for theUS’s economic problemswith remarks like “we can’t continue to allowChina to rape our country, and that’s what they’re doing” from 2016. The sense of anxiety surroundingUS global status in relation toChinawas present again in 2020when he warned that “if I don’t win the election, China will own theUnited States.” This was again re-articulated through the context of the COVID-19 pandemic beginning in January 2020 where he described COVID-19 as the “China virus” to invoke a sense of victimization by China and deflect blame away from his own administration’s failings. Despite the underlying sentiment of who was “weak on China” being an