Trump’s Tariffs Threaten to Push Cambodia Even Closer to China

Along the Mekong River just outside Phnom Penh, Men Moeun and his neighbors live on land set aside for a massive China-backed infrastructure plan that could transform Cambodia’s economy, with some planting corn on the vacant fields to get by.

Now excitement is growing in their village after Chinese President Xi Jinping’s government agreedto move forward with the $1.2 billion Funan Techo Canal during his visit to Cambodia last week. The 152-kilometer (94-mile) waterway would link Cambodia’s manufacturing belt with the Gulf of Thailand, easing the path for exports from one of the region’s poorest economies and providing new jobs and ...