Trump, currently in China for a summit meeting with the Chinese president Xi Jinping, is definitely in an inferior position.
Donald Trump has landed in Beijing, the first visit to China by a US president in nearly a decade, as he seeks to mend power and prestige weakened by the war in Iran.
…The war has entered its third month, with Tehran tightening its grip over the strait of Hormuz and Washington struggling to turn a fragile ceasefire into a lasting settlement.
Behind the scenes, US officials have spent weeks urging China – Iran’s biggest oil customer and one of the few powers with leverage in Tehran – to pressure the Islamic Republic into reopening the strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply ordinarily passes, while accepting US terms for peace.
The US recently sanctioned several Chinese firms accused of assisting Iranian oil shipments and supplying satellite imagery allegedly used in Iranian military operations. China condemned the measures as “illegal unilateral sanctions” and invoked a rarely used blocking statute prohibiting Chinese entities from complying with them.
…The two countries remain locked in a fragile tariff truce reached last autumn after tensions threatened to erupt into a full-scale trade war. Trump has long complained about China’s trade surplus with the US, while Beijing has bristled at American export controls and sanctions.
…Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser in Chinese business and economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies thinktank in Washington, said: “China and Xi Jinping come into this meeting in a much stronger place than the United States.
“China has goals that they would like: to extend the ceasefire, to reduce tech restrictions on the imports of semiconductors and lower tariffs. But even if they don’t get much on any of those things, as long as there’s not a blow up in the meeting and president Trump doesn’t go away and look to re-escalate, China basically comes out stronger.”
To me this seems like Trump trying to create some positive press to take people’s minds off high inflation, the Epstein files, his incompetent cabinet appointees, and other domestic problems, and at the same time try to get China’s help in getting himself out of the mess in Iran, since Iran has been cultivating good relationships with China and Russia. Iran’s foreign minister has visited China and met with their foreign minister and it is reported that Iran has let Chinese ships pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
While it is clear that Trump needs the summit, it is not clear that China does. Furthermore, any deals that Trump may agree to are not worth anything since Trump has no concept of honor and his word means nothing since he feels free to renege of any agreement on a whim. So foreign leaders meeting with Trump seem to be doing so mainly for the optics, since Trump is too lazy and ignorant to be able to discuss anything in any depth. He may digress to rant about windmills or even take a nap mid-meeting. That would not matter so much if there are competent people working behind the scenes. But he tends to appoint cronies who lack any expertise and thus are out of their depth.
This is true even with the so-again, off-again Iran negotiations. Trump’s negotiators are his son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff, both of whom have zero expertise on Iran or foreign affairs generally, with their backgrounds being in real estate, and JD Vance who has no background with Iranian affairs either. Why isn’t Marco Rubio leading the negotiations? After all, he is the secretary state, the person ostensibly in charge of dealing with other nations, and at least can call upon staff who are experts on Iran, who have in-depth knowledge of that country, unless they have already been fired. The whole thing is a shambles.
At the end of the summit there will undoubtedly be announcements of deals that have already been agreed upon, such as the sale of Boeing planes to China. But all that will demonstrate is that Chinese airlines are growing while US airlines are shutting down.
Rubio and Miller are in China with Trump, though both have also made rather anti-China comments in the past. (As have a lot of the other people with Trump.) Both of them are at least better at knowing what to say when, though compared to Trump (or Hegseth) that’s not a high bar.
And I’ve seen speculation that there is something China would like to get out of this: the U.S. dropping any sort of official support for Taiwan.
“Trump in Beijing” at Lawyers, Guns, & Money
… such as the sale of Boeing planes to China.
Considering Boeing’s safety record the last few years, that should count as an act of sabotage, if not outright warfare.
To answer the title;
To line his own nest.
The people he is taking along are mainly potential investors, and he would love to get a cut of any deal which arises. And the billionaires he is taking along don’t care about Taiwan independence as long the
spicechips continue to flow.Yeah, he’s probably selling Taiwan’s ass over there, probably for cheap. What a shame, as if Taiwan’s history wasn’t already painful enough, plus that coyote Xi Jinping seems totally incapable of letting go of that particular bone.
But another thing the craphead is doing: making the Chinese feel REAL GOOD about themselves. Listening to his rantings they hear one thing and one thing only: this is going to be China’s century.
And it was American voters who made it so.
re: Flex, #3 -- What he said.
Taiwan do have a massive bargaining chip, though.
They can pull an Israel, and blow up their semiconductor fabs rather than let them be taken over by the Chinese.
Krugman: Why Did Trump Take Elon Musk to China?
Which is basically what flex said @ #3.
The advantage for China is to show the world who is in charge.
I am reminded of how Homer Simpson and the other patrons of Moe’s Tavern humiliate Barney Gumble by making him imitate a dog and bark in return for another beer.
Trump: “I listened to Netanyahu and my advisors and they fooled me into starting a war with Iran! I didn’t want to, I only did it because everyone said Iran would give in straight away. Now everybody hates me and I can’t cancel the war because I’ll look like a loser. Iran won’t give in, they keep demanding things that they didn’t have even before the war started! Can’t they see that I can’t agree to that? I’m stuck. Help me Xi, I’m stuck and I don’t know what to do!”
Xi: “We will help you.”
@8 birgerjohansson
The advantage for China is to show the world who is in charge.
Seems pretty likely. Xi did not even greet him at the airport. Plus they were pleasant and gave him a few good photo ops that may help at home.