We begin today's meditation with a few sipping exercises to remind it the little treat can go a long way. So pick up your McCafe iced coffees, close your eyes, and deep sipping and deep satisfaction out take a street retreat at McDonald's right now, getting mccaffee iced coffee in any size and any flavor for just ninety nine cents until eleven a m price of participation. Maysberry. I hope you happy the horn running, Michael, because we're in a
trade war with fun. It's a trade war, Sturry midnight. We're in a trade war. Oh boy, slightly forward to the west. Are you auditional news? Welcome to the show. Glad you're here. This is a real pleasure to welcome. Meredith Sumter. Whoops, my screen just went black. Artist who is the head of research, strategy and operations for the Eurasia Group. We frequently talked to Mystery and Bremer, who had up that fine out fit. Meredith, how are you? Oh, I'm well, thanks for having me on. Is he and
technically your boss? Yes? He certainly isn't. He's a great boss to have sounds now, are you just saying that or wink. If you need Jack and Joe, you guys have had him on the show. You know how much funny is and what what dynamic content we get to work with which has an impact on everyday lives here in America. So it's just a real pleasure to be speaking with you and to be part of this part
of this roder discussion. Well cool. One of the things that makes us crazy is just the breathless um coverage of the current trade negotiations with China. And it's all about Trump and the rest of it, But to us, it's really interesting what both countries are trying to achieve in their strategies. Um, can you just give us a brief description of why the US and the Trump administration is going to the wall over trade issues with China? Well, a great question. But first point is this is really
not about trade and it's really not about tariffs. This is about which economic model sort of the U s led liberal market economy that we all know and love here or China's state directed economic model is going to be the leading economic force for the century. But those are pretty high stakes. Yeah, they are very high stakes, which is why you see that the kind of backing up to the wall pressure that President Trump is putting
on here. Look, he was elected on a platform of revitalizing US industry, and when it comes down to that, what he's trying to force China to do is to play by the same rules that every other major developed economy or our market driven economy plays by. And it wasn't that big of a deal when you know, twenty years ago, when China was relatively of a lower level economic power and was not directly competing with US companies and US industry leaders. China now is in some of
these strategic sectors of the future. Actually, China is making more investments than we are here at home and is aiming to be a leading driving force and some of these strategic growth drivers of the future. So US is watching this and saying, hey, if you're going to try to lead, that's fine, but you've got to fairly compete.
You can't get where you are by doing things like you know, unfair market access rules, force technology transfer funding ways to take I P and then build off of that without actually having to do the research and development to make it yours. So that's what this is really about. The President is using the threat of tariff and actually using tariffs to try to force China and to force Chinese President Fijian King to change these structural rules by
which China's economy currently functions. And that's the key point here. So that's an enormous task for a totalitarian, you know, semi communist regime. Uh, kind of cap lest communist hybrid Uh. Is it even possible to get halfway there on some of these giant issues like um, stop stealing our patents and quick demanding all of our I T and all of our R and d um or is it all or nothing? It's certainly worth an effort to try to put as much effort as possible on China to reform
the way that it functions. And the way that that the White House has been trying to do this is say like, look, these kinds of market based reforms are not only good for us and for all the other economies they're trying to fairly compete, but they're also necessary for China to really develop and transform your own economy.
So they've been phrasing these reform concessions in a way that would make sense for China's own domestic comparative need for reform, but that you've really touched on the key problem here, which is that in order to function like in market based economy, the political center has to let go of control of the economy. And there's no sign that Beijing under Stegent Ping especially is prepared to do that. So on one hand, you can force as much pressure as possible to see how far you can get to
push China to make baseline structure reforms. They are going to be good for US companies, good for US industry, good for fair competition. But at some point you're gonna you're gonna hit that wall. And that's the key question is how do you shift your strategy when the tariff pressure is not getting you the full response that you need to protect US industry and to protect onward growth prospects with the US economy. H I've got a question about that, But first, um, I forgot my question. Maybe
I'll go with mother questions. Meredith Sumter of the Eurasia Group is on the line, Oh, to what extent is this our last best chance to put this kind of pressure on China? Do we have to do it when we've got a president who just doesn't care and have a strong economy. Well, certainly, both the the unorthodox approach of President Trump and the US economy remaining resilient are you know, the two most important factors as to why the US is taking this position now. But there's there's
more to this as well. Uh, looking at how are we going to A couple of things need to happen. One, Yes, you need to put pressure on China, and you've got to find the most viable way to do that. So we're gonna try this with tariffs. And the President has already hinted that if this level of economic pain with tariffs is not enough to push China, he's prepared to
issue even additional tariffs on Chinese goods. What you need to watch here is which economy is going to be the most resilient and in taking on this kind of economic pressure, because the moment that one or the other economies begins to weaken, that also weakens the negotiating hand. And both sides know that. Well, yeah, I hate to interrupt you, but I just was ocurred to me that we So you've got two things going on there. On on one hand, you've got the incredibly strong economy of
the United States. On the other, hand, You've got our clitical process where when there starts to be pain, there's gonna be a lot of pressure on a lot of politicians to say some really scary things to try to get trumped back down. Is their political pressure in China too of that sort? There is political pressure in China, but not of the sort that we have here in
our own democratic country. So that the political pressure in China is to ensure that China does what it needs to do so that more Chinese are able to see their livelihoods continue to develop an increase as as as it has. She didn't actually believed that he's in the stronger position because he doesn't have the same kinds of
political democratic pressures that Trump has here account president for life. Yeah, but I've heard that they're they're critically interested in saving face and not being seen as being strong armed by the US. Is that true? That is true, And that's why we see it as highly unlikely that despite the elevation of tariff overnight that Chinese Vice Premier Leal Hood, who's the chief negotiator here in Washington right now, we see it highly unlikely that China is going to agree
to the concessions that Washington wants. We're almost out of time. I get two quick questions, who blinks first? And what day? Please tell us that who blinks first, Jack and Joe depends upon which economy is going to blink first, So watch that very closely. Point two is in order to really be successful in the long term, the US needs to do more than put pressure on China and work with like minded allies to do so. We need to really invest here at home, to double down on investments
and scaling up our workforce across the country. Love doing the basic R and D in our industry so we can compete with China and outcompete China. Meredith Sumter, Meredith, I'm so sorry to jump in. We're up against a heartbreak. Meredith Sumter, head of Research, Strategy Operations your Asia Group. A pleasure. Thank you, really great. I'm really great. Thank you.
That's the best conversation I've heard on that yet. Marshall's got his news coming up, but I know more about it than I did before the whole China trade thing. Who's going to blink win? That's the shan for all your foodies out there. I'm unwrapping a McDonald's steak, egg and cheese bagel. Look at this steak and the juice running down the side. Get a little bit on a wrapper here M. And then the fluffy egg and real cheese floted over the side looking just so good. M M.
Grilled onions and a butt of bagel too. Thumbs up a McDonald steak, egg and chaves bagel for breakfast. Love it, M bomp up. I participate in McDonald's