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We're doing a lot of business with and making a lot of money. It's different than it used to be. But I'll be talking about that'll be one subject. But he's been very nice about this. You know, in all fairness, he gets like sixty percent of his oil from hormones, and he's been I think he's been very respectful. We haven't been challenged by China our challenges.
I'm Stephanie Flanders, head of Government and Economics at Bloomberg, and this is Trumpnomics, the podcast that always looks at the economic world of Donald Trump, how he's shaking up the global economy, and what on earth is going to happen next. This week, we're looking ahead to what could be one of the more consequential meetings of the year if it happens. That's the long anticipated, already once rescheduled summit between President Donald Trump and President Shijingping in China
in two weeks time now. President Trump has said this week he's still looking forward to meeting his Chinese counterpart, Si Jingping, and officials in the White House and Beijing have been preparing for this high stakes conversation for months. But in that period, the administration has also decided to start a war in Iran that has brought fresh trains
between the two countries. It's choked off a major source of energy for China and its neighbors, and offered an opportunity for China to once again painted itself as a more reliable global citizen than the US. In the past few days, Iran related tensions have also ratcheted up again, as China has taken the unprecedented step of ordering its companies not to abide by US sanctions on private refiners involved in trading Iranian oil. It's a pretty brazen attack
on the legitimacy of US sanctions. So will Trump and she actually sit down this month, and if they do, what's left to agree on? Well, we're recording this Wednesday morning, DC time, and it's really quite possible that the summit might have been canceled or postponed again by the time you hear this. But if so, I would encourage you not to turn off, but to view the next thirty minutes or so as providing valuable insights into why that happened. Because we do have in our DC studio to extremely
well placed experts on US China diplomacy. Jenny Welch, the chief geoeconomics analyst for Bloomberg Economics who's been on the show before. She previously served as the director for China and Taiwan on the US National Security Council under the Biden and Trump administrations. She was also an advisor to
Vice Presidents Harris and Pence on Asia and the Pacific. Jenny, thanks again for joining us, Thank you for having me, and usually in Hong Kong, and we've certainly heard him from there on occasion, but now in DC this week. Down ten Kate, Bloomberg executive editor who run all of our economics and politics coverage in Asia.
Dan, thanks for coming, Thanks for having me.
Do you think this is going to happen? What are the probabilities? I know you wrote on this yesterday, but what probability are you putting on this now happening on the kind of time frame that we were expecting.
I tend to lean a little bit towards the meeting going forward as planned, and I think the main reason for that is that it's a relatively low cost way for both sides to maintain stability, and both of them have an interest in that, especially given all the headwinds they're facing at home and from the energy disruptions caused by the Iran War. That being said, as you mentioned, Stephanie, there are also a lot of friction points that are
continuing to build, including over the war itself. China is not happy about the blockade, which is affecting a major source of energy imports for it coming through her moves.
It is not happy about US pressure on a run and particularly recent US sanctions targeting is private, refined and more broadly, I think China is not happy to be hosting a major diplomatic summit in the midst of the US carrying out whether Washington says it still is or not, what the world precedes as a major military campaign in the Middle East.
And I guess, yeah, so it's sort of rather it wasn't happening, but given that it is, they also would see significant costs to putting it off, for canceling.
It, that's right. I think there is the risk that a could turn from just a diplomatic snafu into a larger friction point in the relationship, and that comes in a moment where while China's insulated itself from the effects of the Iran war through its reserves, its energy diversification. It's still facing costs, and it's still worried about the impact this war will have on its ability to sell its exports around the world. And so all that is to say, I think they would not necessarily want a
trade fight if they can avoid it with the United States. Certainly, they would wage it if they felt they had to, but hosting Trump is relatively low cost way of potentially avoiding that outcome.
Dan Jenny's obviously kind of thinking about both perspectives, having spent a lot of time sort of advising US administrations on how China is looking at things. But you know, you're normally sitting in Hong Kong. How do you think that the Chinese authorities will be viewing the summit and the decision to potentially postpone or delay.
I agree with Jenny, definitely, it's not the preferred time to be having a summit. Chi Jiping will often say things to leaders, like when he dressed down Justin Trudeau at the G twenty in Bali a couple of years ago. You know, we need to create the right conditions for the relationship and this is not the right conditions. It definitely puts them in an awkward position in terms of what do you do on the ground. They like to
just make sure that everything is stage managed. They measure out the distance that Hi Jiping needs to walk from point A to point B. The they don't like any surprises, so dealing with Trump normally, there's so many unknowns when it comes to that that you're not quite sure what he's going to say, and you're trying to stage manage the whole thing. So it just adds an element of
uncertainty that they don't like. But they also do have a way of looking at the bigger picture, and the bigger picture is the US is still an important market. Their economy is still heavily reliant on exports in a stable external environment. They're also that the host APEC later in the year, Trump is going to host the G twenty.
They're supposed to meet three more times after this, so to keep that all on track, this meeting has to happen at some point or otherwise it gets to rail and this truce is said to expire in November unless you extend it. And so for all those reasons, there's a lot of reasons to go forward with this meeting, even if it's not an optimal time.
Chinese could maybe take some advice from the palace, given that you've had the planning for the King's visit in DC. I suspect was there were very similar concerns. I suspect the Chinese will be kind of thinking through similar ways to reduce the amount of time for any kind of anything surprising to happen. I do want to get into what they might talk about, what the to use the phrase is much loved in these kind of discussions. Deliverables might be from the summit, be good to get a
sense of this. More recent news in the last week that I mentioned at the top that China ordering its companies to ignore US sanctions, the sanctions that were on refiners that had been linked to refining Iranian oil. How unprecedented is that because we've heard the Chinese before kind of complain about US sanctions, say they're not legitimate. But what's new in this move?
Yeah, I mean we have seen this before, particularly in Hong Kong where I'm based, during the protest or the twenty twenty after the National Security Law that specifically says that China, these companies should not comply with US sanctions, and banks were in effect being forced to choose do you comply with the US or do you comply with the National Security law? And even Chinese state run banks were complying with US sanctions then because they didn't want
to be cut off from the dollar system. So there is a little bit of a dance where what they say and what they do can be two different things sometimes. I think what's different now is that China has stood
up to Trump, particularly last year. They have the showed the leverage they have with by cutting off rare earths, and that's still there, so they're in a relatively stronger position to say things like, hey, we're going to dare you, essentially to put sanctions on our banks, and that's going to blow up the relationship, and do you want to
blow up the relationship now? Rubio was giving a briefing year in Washington yesterday where he said, we don't put sanctions on to be symbolic, and we are going to enforce them. But you know, from the Chinese perspective, they know that Trump wants the summit and doesn't want things to blow up. He's got enough problems on his plate. Now if we see them trying to squeeze Taiwan a bit more as well, so it's an opportune time in their mind to say, Okay, we'll call your bluff on
this one and do you go ahead? And it potentially could royal the relationship, could royal markets. Certainly we'll have an impact on China as well. But if you're going to take a stand, you know, why not, especially ahead of the summit.
It feels like a sign of the times, Jenny. If the previous situation was that the Chinese in public would say they don't respect these sanctions, but in private would largely kind of turn a blind eye to their biggest companies abiding by sanctions in order to stay in the US system, and for all those reasons, if we're now in a reverse situation where it's actually the US that has to kind of turn a blind eye to countries just ignoring the writ of America because it no longer
has the same kind of weight, I mean, that's something that we're not just seeing in China.
No, I think that's true. I think too, what this situation really underscores is the shift in leverage between the
United States and China over the last year. I can't underscore enough the impact of China's use of its grip over critical minerals to put the ONUS back on Washington last year during the height of the trade war and push Washington towards the negotiating table, push it towards a pause that eventually led to the Bussan meeting and a more enduring truce that had a real psychological effect on Washington,
and demonstrating China's trump card. And it's a trump card that even though Beijing has put a pause on some of those measures, it hasn't fully rolled them back. In fact, it's continuing to gather information from every company that imports Chinese critical minerals on how they're using it and what specifically they use them for. So all of that is information that China could very quickly use again if it felt, for example, that the US is not respecting its interest.
And I think that that really casts a shadow over policymaking in this administration. You've seen them be very careful about, for example, how China is referred to, and everything from the National Defense strategy to future export control rules. And I think it's also likely to be a factor in how the US is approaching this meeting.
In particular, we had a fantastic bit of research that was out about a week ago from your colleagues Nicole Gordon Carottelli and Chris Kennedy, just looking at how much rare earths are implicated in the US economy. And it's an incredibly complicated bit of work because it's going through not just the direct use but the indirect use, so
you have to really get under the hood. But they find that four percent of US GDP is implicated at one point true trillion dollars, and although some of them can be substituted for rareers from other parts of the world, there's actually about one and a half percent of that which just can't substituted. China's the only source. So it really really showed us why that is such an important
bit of leverage. Dan, I remember talking to you she when I was in Hong Kong earlier in the year, and we were talking about the sort of relative balance of power, the shifting ground underneath the US and China. I mean, it's not just a ran that's happened since then. We've also seen the overturning of a lot of the tariffs that had been put on China. China's now got a big advantage relative to the start of the year in the tariff rate that it's facing going into the US.
What are you looking for if this meeting does go ahead? What's possible on the trade front?
The US has the three oh one investigations ongoing, and they vowed to rebuild this tariff wall. So I think China's big concern now is that it doesn't get rebuilt in a way that they see US going beyond what was there before, and they just want to issue some warnings there. So there is some uncertainty hanging over what that rate is going to be or what that picture looks like. And I think until you start that out,
it's really hard to go beyond that. And this notion that, Okay, they've made this truce, and then they were talking about how can we build off of that truce? Can we actually do some bigger things with the economy. Can we sell more advanced chips into China? You have the h two hundreds ready to go, not many have been shipped yet.
They're not the super important the Blackwell chips. They're sort of one down from there.
Right, You've got the Blackwells, got the Rubens, there are a couple generations back. We don't see that there's going to be anything further in that area. And then the question is can you get a big Chinese investment package in the US. There was some talk of are they going to you know, if anyone, I guess Trump could totally flip the script and say, you know, we're going to welcome massive BYD investments and electric vehicles and things like that, But there doesn't seem to be anything on
the cards there. The national security restriction are still in place on a lot of those things. You have pent up demand for Boeing airplanes and it looks like a deal there might go through, And of course that also gives China leverage with Airbus. If you're just buying from one supplier, you don't have much leverage there. So that also helps the Chinese in a way film demand that they already have and gives them some negotiating leverage against Airbus.
You're very still in the straight jacket of national security restrictions that limit how far you can go either way on the trade investment front and out some wins, but I don't see anything that would really move the needle to break through those restrictions that we've seen.
Jenny, the bad news for you is that you're going to have to be quite focused all this summit if it does go ahead for the next two weeks, and get people excited about soybeans as well as maybe the old Boeing jet.
Yes, I think that's right. I think the ambition is relatively low for it. That being said, obviously President Trump would trumpet it as a major foreign policy win, major deliverables, but as with so many things, all of it depends on the execution.
Right.
There were a lot of promises made in Bussan last year, and I think we're still waiting to see how some
of those turn out, including on soybean purchases. The Chinese fulfilled the requirement to purchase I think it was twelve million metric tons by February of this year, but they're on the hook to buy about twenty five million by the end of this year, and they think is a huge question, especially for US farmers, when do those orders come in, because it makes a big difference on whether they come in now or whether they come in closer towards the end of the year, which is when Beijing
might have an incentive to do it. You don't want to frontload all those orders and lose all your leverage. So there are just a number of friction points in the relationship, and I think that this meeting would help to provide some stability and additional time to work through those, but it's not going to probably resolve all of them, including because the President in the United States is not
the only actor here. You have Congress, for example, considering laws that would restrain his ability to do some of the things he's talking about, including on Chinese vehicles in the United States.
Dan, you said something on a news call earlier today that made me think about it slightly differently. So we've talked about, you know, the leverage that China has kind of now exercised when it comes to rare earths. We tend to feel quite beholden to China's extremely cheap evs and solar panels and all these things that are incredibly useful in the world, and right now, especially in Europe,
as people are trying to avoid higher energy costs. But I guess on the other side, what's happened in the last few months is We've really seen the power of some of these AI tools, including some of the things we discussed it on the show a couple of weeks ago, things like Mythos coming out of Anthropic. The US does seem to have the lead still on these very potent
forms of AI. Is that something that Donald Trump sort of has in his favor or you know, gives him a little bit more leverage, or at least the US has a bit more standing going into this. It's not all on China's side.
Yeah, I think that's right, And I've been struck by that in conversations I've had here in Washington with some people in this space who see that as something that China would be very concerned about obviously, and imagine it was the other way around, where China had this AI tool that could penetrate any defenses and they would be very freaked out about that. We have actually tried to get reporting on this from the Chinese side, and they've been very very quiet on it, which suggests they're very
concerned about it. And I think that that is one of the things where that also gives China an incentive for the meeting to go forward to keep things stable there how the US would use that, whether they would use it for leverage. These are all questions I don't think we know totally right now. But even if you have a two month lead or something like that before China develops a similar tool, there is an interest either way in preventing rogue actors from get this and putting
some sort of guardrails on it. And I think to the Hawks point it does from what I understand here, is that it has given the Trump administration a new appreciation of the need to maintain a lead on China in these areas. So in a sense that you know, it's helped focus the mind. Instead of hey, let's give them all these advanced chips, it's like, oh, these weapons are actually really powerful and could cause widespread destruction and give us leverage in the real world. So that's a
good thing. Like let's keep that advantage and press it a little bit sore. I think there has been a little shift in that regard.
Jenny. We should say it's pretty unusual to have a US president go to China. I mean, the last one to go, most recent one to go was do Trump in twenty seventeen, nearly a decade ago. Are we sort of underestimating just symbolically how significant it is. I mean, why is it so rare for a US president to go to China.
I would say it's rare now, it didn't always used to be, and it didn't always used to be rare for Chinese leaders to come to the United States. Hi Jimping. It's been sometimes since he made a state visit to the United States, although as Dan mentioned, that might happen later this year. And what's interesting too, is I think that President Trump was the last president to visit in twenty seventeen. It wasn't something that was seriously discussed during
the Biden administration. There was no discussion of a trip one way or the other. And President Trump might be the last president to visit China again for some time.
It's hard to imagine a president from either political party being willing to especially to visit China where you're sort of giving that country the opportunity to play host and to project its global clout, and a moment when both PARTI still seem to largely believe that China is a strategic rival and are very focused on the competition, even though President Trump has a different framing for that most Republicans in congres are still adhere to that, and so
I think whoever is likely to follow him into the White House might face some of the same political headwinds other presidents have faced in contemplating either hosting or certainly visiting Beijing.
My sense from talking to you before is that what would usually happen in the lead up to a summit is actually things go relatively quiet. That you've mentioned in the past that you'd often have a reduction in activity around Taiwan. You know, there's all these things just to kind of smooth smooth the waters. It feels like it's kind of been the opposite in the last few weeks. I mean, partly thanks to Iran, but it doesn't seem
like China's making an effort on that front. If anything, there's been an effort to throw a bit more weight around in advance of this trip.
I think that's exactly right. So normally you do see in advance of a visit or a major meeting, both sides sort of taking steps, as Dan mentioned, to create the proper conditions for the meeting to happen and be successful. And I will say I think the Trump administration was largely doing that when it came to specifically China issues and bilateral issues, so things like export controls again I
mentioned National Defense strategy, Taiwan arm sales. There was a lot of restraint that seemed to be exercised on those fronts. But when it came to the Iran war, because that is President Trump's priority, China was kind of collateral damage, right, and so I don't think the administration was considering the
China factor. It certainly wasn't considering it a priority when it came to decisions like the blockade, like the sanctions on Iran's oil trade, and I think you're likely to see that continue, that he's not necessarily going to hold off on Iran related actions out of concern for Beijing's feelings on this, and I think what you see from Beijing is a response to that and saying things like, well, if you're going to do this, we're going to use
our blocking rules. If you're going to do this, then we're going to host a runs foreign minister in Beijing just beforehand to talk about the war. And those are all the potential friction points that again, it could not delay the meeting, but you could certainly see them presenting a speed bump to it going forward.
Dan's the last word for you, because you're going to be the one when you get back. I suspect you'll be continuing to write your plans for the team on how to report on this summit. We tend to say, and you said at the start, you know they've got a very different approach to things. You've got a leader in China who is not really focused on relationships, very we are told, wants everything to be nailed down in advance, doesn't like surprises. President Trump is, you know, famously exactly
the opposite. But I can't help remembering when there was a kind of standoff last year about the phone call between the two of them. All the very wise Chinese experts assured me there's no way that President She's going to get on a Callway doesn't know exactly but what's going to happen on the call or what's been agreed, And in fact we were all surprised because we then
found out that a call had taken place. So I just wondered, do you think there are some potential surprises that come out of this where President She is kind of maybe learning to play a different kind of game with this different kind of president.
Yeah.
And I think with the call last year, the question was you know what would get she on the phone? And I think that it became clear in the weeks and months afterwards that China was looking at that as we are drawing a line in capping various export controls that the US could put on China, and so is
that worth it? Yes, I think the Chinese do have a pragmatic side there in terms of, as we said, the bigger picture, which is, let's make sure we're seen as a like for like superpower, that we're treated with some respect, that there's reciprocity. If you do something, we'll do something thing. And there is some convergence here as well in the fact that China wants the straight of four Moos open right now. They don't want to be
seen to endorse anything Trump is doing. I think they completely opposed the war and the strikes, but they do want the straight open. They don't want to be paying tolls in waterways. It was the Indonesian finance most are floating apparently saying it was joking that they were going to consider a ship tax in the Malacca Strait where a lot of Chinese oil transits.
I noticed that because we did an episode a few weeks ago about how this was all this could potentially open. Well, I think open the floodgates is probably the wrong metophor, but you know that this straight and four moos issue in the US not underpinning that shipping route did potentially open the way to others being under challenged, not least that one. So I was very interested to see that happen.
But sorry, I think that's right. So China wants freedom of navigation, they want a lot of things the US wants. They've benefited immensely from free and been traded across the world, and they've managed to take advantage of that, probably better than any other country. So there is some convergence of interests where they can align on those things. China, of course wants to you know, not condone that. And there's
a political element to that too. So last time when Trump was there, he got a private tour of the Forbidden City and at dinner with she and in a military display. So yes, there might not be any huge breakthroughs in the relationship, But how does China treat those sorts of optical things. What is the tone of the statement. How much does the language on Taiwan change? For instance, does it roll out the red carpet for Trump, does
she smile? What are the interpersonal reactions like? And I think that message for China's is much more complicated in this kind of environment. And so how they play that the tone of it will be very interesting to watch. But China does keep their eye on the ball in the eye and that is essentially, you know, keeping the commerce party in che keeping the economy stable, handling all
the various domestic problems that they have at home. And you've got to remember too, there's a party Congress next year that's essentially an election year in China for all intentsive purposes. There's a lot of chocking for positions going on now. She himping has gotten rid of most of his top generals, which indicates there's a lot of turbulence under the surface of what we see. And so God knows what problems she is dealing with at home right now?
Does he need? You know, he would like a stable world, and so that's the incentive to go forward, even if it's not optimal.
As I said, well, we would be looking for all of those if the summit goes ahead, and if it doesn't go ahead, we will look back on this conversation and say it was all very clear in the outlines of what you were both saying. So, Jenny Welch, Doantein, Kate, thank.
You very much, Thank you, thank you very much.
Thanks for listening to Trumponomics from Bloomberg. It was hosted by me Stephanie Flanders. I was joined by Bloomberg's executive editor for economics and politics coverage in Asia, Dan Tang, Kate, and Jennifer Welch, chief geoeconomics analyst for Bloomberg Economics. Trumponomics was produced by Summersadi and Moses and Dam and sound design was by Blake Maples and Kelly Gary, with special
thanks this week to Amy Morris. Please to help others find us and enjoy this show, please rate it and review it highly wherever you listen to podcasts.