TRUMP MEETS XI: "12 OUT OF 10" AND ALL THAT
- Paul Hansbury
- 4 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
The two most powerful men in the world met in Busan, South Korea. US President Donald Trump came away from his meeting with China's Xi Jinping glowing and gloating: it was a 'truly great' conversation which, with his usual hyperbole, he scored as '12 out of 10'.
For sure, there were outcomes to boast about. China agreed to suspend export restrictions on rare earth metals. The US diluted its tariff threats and promised to lower those already in place. Yet both of these 'achievements' might not have been issues prior to Trump's return to the presidency: both the hefty US tariffs on China and the latter's export controls on rare earths were introduced because of recent tensions – and exacerbated them.
Hard as it has been to keep up with the levels of tariffs, sorting what is threatened from what is actually implemented, US tariffs on imports from China still seem to average above 40% (based on my best effort at making sense of the numbers). The touted lowering of tariffs is not going to cause goods and services to flow freely between the two countries. To evaluate whether there is any meaningful accomplishment or improvement in relations, as heralded by Trump after yesterday's summit, requires stepping back a little bit.
I look back at what I wrote in November 2023 when Joe Biden and Xi Jinping met in California. Responding to their meeting, I noted that 'the two leaders evaded discussion of the big political conflicts that have the potential to shape the global order in the coming decades.' Is Trump doing any better?
Whilst the full agenda of yesterday's summit is not public knowledge, one senses that key issues were once again avoided rather than broached.
Most obvious among these is Taiwan. Asked about it, Trump said that it 'never came up'. The point, it should be needless to add, is that people expect the US president to raise the issue. Saying that an issue 'never came up' just conveys an impression that he was poorly briefed and let the Chinese steer the conversation. Even if the US deliberately avoided the topic, there could have been a better-prepared response to media than the off-hand reply, 'it never came up'. At the very least, Trump should have acknowledged the issue's salience, if only to deflect or delay from giving a direct answer.
He sounded equally off-note about the dispute over high-end microchips, which the US has been trying to restrict Beijing's access to. China and chip manufacturer Nvidia will talk to each other, claimed the president, with the US state as a 'sort of referee'. Given the severity of the dispute here, his comments sounded detached, almost uninterested. We know very well that he is interested in semiconductors – vide: the importance of Taiwan to the US – and so his brushing off of questions about AI and microchips caught attention.
Further, what about US complaints China is buying Russian oil and gas? Trump merely boasted on his Truth Social platform, 'a very large scale transaction may take place concerning the purchase of Oil and Gas from the Great State of Alaska' (comedy capitals in the original). No mention of the possibility of secondary sanctions on China or stopping it from buying Russian oil, only noise about a deal that 'may take place' between China and America.
