We have no choice. Have you seen the debt? And foreigners aren't investing in America anymore. We are no longer the safe investment. Plus Trump has made our trading partners our enemies. So they are punishing us over Trump's tariff war. Now we see Trump does want good relations with China. He's going to visit soon right?
Trump is leaning into the hype. “Great things will happen for both Countries!” he wrote in a
Truth Social post Monday.
For China, however, Trump’s visit is just the latest in a series of high-profile meetings with implications for geopolitics. An Iranian official met with his Chinese counterparts in Beijing last week, and Russian President
Vladimir Putin is expected to visit the city days after Trump leaves.
The stakes will be high for the summit, and every word out of each leader’s mouth will be parsed.
Less than two weeks later, Trump said the U.S. had
asked China to delay the summit in light of the Iran war.
Now, with the war dragging on far longer than the Trump administration’s previous prediction of a four-to-six-week endeavor, some see China gaining a positional advantage.
“It provides China a degree of leverage,” Dong said, noting that Beijing is Iran’s largest trade partner and the top buyer of its oil.
“China has a significant amount of influence over Iran,” he said. Should Trump seek to end the conflict as it currently stands, “China is definitely going to have a role to play.”
the U.S.′ efforts in Iran have drawn its focus away from the Pacific, potentially creating vulnerabilities for Taiwan, a U.S. ally and major semiconductor manufacturer, that China may soon seek to exploit.
“If China were to contemplate an attack, this might be the opportune moment to do it,” the professor said.
Even if China doesn’t take that action, there are other Taiwan-related trip wires that Trump will have to avoid during his time with Xi.
The Chinese are “super focused” on “any kind of language shift on Taiwan from Trump,” Chan said.
The U.S. has a
nuanced position on Taiwan: It acknowledges that Beijing believes Taiwan is a part of China, and it asserts that there is only one Chinese government. But it also maintains a strong, though unofficial, commercial and cultural relationship with Taipei, and it has kept vague about whether it would defend Taiwan if it is attacked
“There’s been some fears in Washington that Trump would make some kind of comment, [or] agree to a language change on how the U.S. views Taiwan’s status, that would be in line with what Beijing is hoping for,” Chan said.
China could seize on any such deviation to bolster its position toward Taiwan, he said.
Trump on Monday gave an example of how that situation could play out, when he was asked at the White House if he expects Taiwan to come up in his talks with Xi.
“Yeah, it always comes up,” he said, before immediately pivoting to Russia’s war in Ukraine, which he frequently claims would never have started if he were president at the time.
“Taiwan, I equate it a little bit to that,” he said. “You have the right president, I don’t think it’ll happen, I think we’ll be fine. I have a very good relationship with President Xi, [who] knows I don’t want that to happen.”
Trump then noted that China is geographically far closer to Taiwan than the U.S. is, adding, “there’s a lot of support for Taiwan, from Japan and from countries from that area.”
Asked if the U.S. should keep selling weapons to Taiwan, Trump said: “President Xi would like us not to, and I’ll have that discussion. That’s one of the many things I’ll be talking about.”
China experts anticipate Trump and Xi may announce trade deals or other agreements, such as a Chinese purchase of U.S. agricultural products or Boeing aircraft.
www.cnbc.com
