Trump's Trip to China, Debunking the Spin
Trump’s Trip to China, Debunking the Spin
Junious Ricardo Stanton
Donald Trump and an entourage of
prominent business titans visited China last week from May 13-15. Of course, Trump touted the trip as an
extremely successful event, claiming great progress was made establishing
greater partnerships between the US and China. But did that really happen, is
Trump telling the truth and what if anything come out of his visit to China?
What we know is true is Donald
Trump, US Secretary of State Marco
Rubio, US Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent and US Secretary of Defense Pete
Hegseth with a retinue of tech, finance and business people such as Elon Mush (Tesla, SpaceX) Tim Cook CEO of
Apple, Jensen Huang CEO of Nvidia, Larry Fink CEO Blackrock, Kelly Orterg CEO
of Boeing, David Solomon CEO of Goldman Sachs, Sanja Mehrotra CEO of Micron,
Jane Fraser CEO of CITI, Ryan McInerney CEO of VISA, Michael Micbach CEO of
Mastercard, Dina Powell McCormick President of META his son Eric Trump and several
others accompanied Trump anticipating making progress in accomplishing several
key goals and objectives
Their aims were to: 1) resolve the
issue of rare earth minerals. China maintains a virtual global monopoly on these
minerals which are crucial to modern life providing the main components for
smart devices, military and high-tech items. Unless there were some
super-secret meetings and negotiations of the Deep State kind going on behind
the scenes, there was no mention of rare earth agreements or MOUs following the
two-day meetings. It was almost as if they went to China and came away empty
handed, unless of course there were secret meetings going on behind the scenes,
(wink wink). 2) Open China to additional foreign investment, gain access to
China for US banking, finance and tech markets and partnerships. Open dialogue about Chinses electric
vehicles, come to an agreement on fentanyl and its components, 3)Secure help from Xi Jinping to resolve the
Strait of Hormuz impasse and assistance for some type of settlement of the Iran
War.
But there were no announcements
about China opening up its internal markets to US banking, financial or tech
companies nor was anything mentioned about Chinese companies partnering with
any of these CEOs on joint ventures, collaborations or strategic partnerships!
Nothing whatsoever. Trump did say China promised to invest several billions of
dollars into US projects and ventures but the Chinese were strangely silent on
this matter. Trump said the Chinese promised to purchase more US soybeans and
agricultural products as well as two hundred US Boeing commercial aircraft. Yet
no formal agreements or contracts were signed!
I hate to be a Debbie Downer but,
the US is no longer China’s main supplier of soybeans. China went elsewhere
after Trump imposed outrageous tariffs on China during his first administration.
China refusing to be intimidated or browbeat went to Brazil and Argentina instead,
for their soybeans. This forced Trump to regroup, rethink his trade and
currency policies and beg the Chinese to start buying US soybeans again!
None of this is new news. All of
this information is on the public record in the public domain. Nothing was
announced about President Xi Jinping agreeing to help Trump settle the Strait
of Hormuz deadlock nor resolving the fallout from the US/Israel aggression
against Iran. So, what if anything came out of this trip? It appears Xi Jinping
is not about to interrupt Trump or bail him out while he is shooting himself in
the foot.
What Xi Jinping did do was remind
Trump about the Thucydides Trap which was a not-so-subtle rebuke. In
effect Xi Jinping was telling Trump China is a rising power on par with the US
which is a declining power; as the world clearly sees following Trump’s
disastrous war of choice against Iran. Jinping also warned Trump not to
interfere or publicly reference China’s internal politics and Xi was adamant
about China’s red line against US interference with Taiwan reunification. Trump got spanked in front of the whole world!
But both men did agree to meet later in the year in the US.
In a face-saving spin, Trump
claimed China agreed to purchase more US crude oil but again, no formal
agreements were signed! But even if this was true, what most Westerners don’t
know is, China has diversified its energy sources, China uses more coal, it has
a massive oil reserve and it is building numerous nuclear-powered plants.
China is never going to allow
itself to be dependent upon any other nation especially not a Western one! As
far as trade goes, China wants to trade with the whole world not just the West.
Here’s the kicker, the US only accounts for about 8.8% of China’s total global
trade, that’s less than 10% and Trump’s foolish tariffs and trade wars have
jeopardized that! The Southeast Asian Nations block accounts for 16.5% and the
EU totals 13.1% both are larger portions of China’s trading partnerships
although not in total dollars compared to the US.
Trump’s trip unless there were
substantive secret meetings on the side was a nothing burger. In the final
analysis it was more spin (BS) than substance.
-30-
posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 1:34 PM
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