Can Trump and Xi Strike a Deal? – Foreign Policy

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Highlights of this week: US President Donald Trump And the Chinese president Xi Jinping A “framework” was agreed upon before Thursday’s meeting regarding Trump’s relationship with the Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaishi It could raise tensions with Beijing, and government efforts to control Mosquito-borne disease Draw backlash.

Welcome to Foreign policyChina Brief.

Highlights of this week: US President Donald Trump And the Chinese president Xi Jinping A “framework” was agreed upon before Thursday’s meeting regarding Trump’s relationship with the Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaishi It could raise tensions with Beijing, and government efforts to control Mosquito-borne disease Draw backlash.

What to expect when Trump meets Xi?

US Treasury Secretary Scott Besent indicated that US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are ready to call a truce in their trade war when they meet in South Korea on Thursday.

Preparatory talks, according to Besant, led to agreement on a “framework” that includes a temporary halt to China’s sanctions on rare earth elements, the final sealing of a deal to allow the popular video app TikTok to continue operating in the United States, and Beijing’s promise to buy US soybeans. The Chinese side made similar positive signals, describing the talks as frank and positive.

Trump threatened Two weeks ago Imposing additional 100% tariffs on China after Beijing announced a system to control rare earths, which hit a sore spot in Washington. The US tariffs were expected to take effect on Saturday, but markets were already skeptical of their possibility, falling briefly after the announcement before rising again after appearing to ease.

Traders’ confidence that Trump is walking away from threats rather than facing the consequences – the idea that “Trump always evades” – may be justified once again. Perhaps similarly, the combination of pressure from the United States and the European Union is also prompting China to reconsider the use of its new system for controlling rare earths.

However, this move shook the United States. Since the rare earth sanctions were announced, Trump administration officials have been consulting private-sector China experts for advice on finding sources to pressure Beijing, many of which the White House has already undermined since Trump took office in January.

Two of the experts consulted spoke about the background Foreign policy Trump officials were disdainful of previous government research, but their own ideas about potential influence were outdated, such as targeting Chinese supplies of jet fuel. In contrast to the United States, China has moved to limit and often reform dependence on critical imports; For example, Beijing now has significant monopolies on the production of jet fuel.

The lack of an actual plan on the part of China hawks in the Trump administration appears to have allowed the trade faction – represented by figures such as Picent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick – to resurface. But I’m still not sure a real agreement will emerge from Trump and Xi’s meeting on Thursday rather than a temporary truce.

Even if an agreement is reached this week, it is unlikely that either party will adhere to it.

On the American side, adherence to the agreement will depend on an increasingly erratic president. Just this week, Trump halted trade talks and imposed additional tariffs on Canada, the United States’ third-largest trading partner, because a political announcement made him mad. The relationship between the United States and China is witnessing multiple points of friction, and any one of them could anger Trump any week, just as controls on rare earth elements did.

Although Xi is a more stable leader than Trump, China has a poor record of keeping deals with the United States. Beijing has not purchased any of the additional $200 billion in exports promised as part of the so-called Phase One trade deal reached during Trump’s first term. The 2015 cybersecurity truce did nothing to prevent China’s massive hacking of American infrastructure or the hacking of private companies.

So the most likely outcome of Thursday’s meeting is a return to the status quo ante – perhaps with Trump initiating another 90-day pause on his massive tariffs. But if Xi offers enough flattery, Trump might agree to a longer-term deal – even if neither side can fulfill its commitments. The meeting could also lead to another round of stockpiling from US companies worried about the resumption of the trade war.

China may agree to return to buying American soybeans, an industry that has become a political danger to Trump. But now that China has arranged alternative suppliers in Brazil and Argentina, I doubt Beijing will adhere to this agreement. Chinese soybean purchases from the United States have declined since 2022, as part of a general shift toward South American suppliers for agricultural imports.

But even if it’s just a temporary pause, at least avoiding the tariff apocalypse saves Christmas.

What we follow

Are tensions brewing with Takaishi? The rapprochement between Trump and Japan’s new prime minister, the nationalist Sanae Takaishi, could be a flashpoint in US-China relations. Takaishi appears to have succeeded in wooing Trump with promises of cooperation in rare earths and trade, as well as outright flattery, as he offered to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize.

This is an impressive achievement for a Japanese prime minister, given Trump’s repeated (and false) accusations of unfair trade practices by Tokyo in the past. But it is also potentially explosive: China is highly suspicious of Takaishi, an advocate of Japan’s rearmament and a tough approach to China who follows in the footsteps of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the assassinated Japanese leader who was her political mentor.

Takaichi has so far shown diplomatic finesse in avoiding any visit to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine, but Xi did not send the usual congratulatory message after her election victory, instead leaving the task to Chinese Premier Li Qiang – a deliberate snub.

Military Purge Updates. Following the official announcement of the expulsion of nine military commanders last week, the main newspaper of the People’s Liberation Army of China published – PLA Daily– Runs a series on the need for political loyalty and will in the military. The articles rely on reliable clichés (“steel must be strengthened,” taken from one of Xi Jinping’s favorite books, a Soviet one), but they also reinforce Xi Jinping’s political superiority.

the PLA Daily The articles constitute another blow to a persistent claim in the diaspora rumor mill: that Xi was losing power to People’s Liberation Army General Zhang Yuxia, and that the recently concluded Fourth Plenum of the Chinese Communist Party would see a dramatic leadership announcement. Instead, the plenum ended undramatically, with Xi Jinping appearing to be at the helm of the party as ever.

FP Most Read This Week

Technology and business

Mosquito control directs decline. The chikungunya virus, an annoying but rarely fatal mosquito-borne disease, is spreading around the world, but the battle to control it in China has turned into a public relations disaster. A serious outbreak began in southern Guangdong province in July, prompting local authorities to mobilize public health workers to track the disease, eliminate pools of stagnant water where mosquitoes breed, and make the use of mosquito repellent mandatory.

However, there has been serious opposition to the program thanks to the abuses. Pingyuan city authorities asked local residents to hand over their house keys so that officials could enter to check for stagnant water. In Zhanjiang, officials broke into a house in the middle of the night and took blood from sleeping children for tests.

These measures have brought back memories of the coronavirus eradication policy, when a strict testing and surveillance program dominated life in China for three years. But public complaints prompted Pingyuan authorities to back down, issuing a list of 22 “no-nos” for public health workers — such as killing pets, breaking into property, and using strong pesticides near residences.

Although the government tried to cover up the protests that helped stamp out the coronavirus, Chinese officials clearly haven’t forgotten about them.

Artificial intelligence safety race. Although the United States is generally considered to be ahead of China in the AI ​​race, Beijing may have the advantage in one area that Silicon Valley generally ignores: safety. China has a stricter online regulatory regime than the United States; She’s happy for AI broadcasters to give national security warnings on social media, but has concerns about putting too much power in the hands of ordinary users.

Although many of these safety efforts are directed toward censorship and opinion control, they also aim for more mundane, and sometimes laudable, purposes—such as protecting data and regulating minors’ access to the Internet. As a result, China leads the world in regulating artificial intelligence.

Stories also break AI-driven psychosis Chatbots Encourage Teen Suicide It seems that Chinese supermodels are ahead of the game, refusing to follow the dangerous signals encouraged by top Western models.