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00:00Have we heard any solidified agreements from the White House, from the U.S. side?
00:04And what are we waiting for still to get some details on?
00:08Concepts of a deal, which is a great deal.
00:10Exactly. Well done.
00:12Yeah, we're starting to hear from the Chinese.
00:15They did agree to lower tariffs on a certain range of products.
00:19They referenced the agricultural sector.
00:22They did confirm the plane deal, although they didn't give specifics that the president referred to.
00:30Yesterday, on the way back from Beijing, we are still waiting to hear from the White House a bit more.
00:37Again, the details remain scant here.
00:40And I think until we have more, we can't really break down just how much economic cooperation there is here.
00:49I think some of this is signaling, of course.
00:51Courtney, it's a quiet weekend for the president.
00:53He has executive time, as he calls it, today and tomorrow, but nothing else on the official schedule.
00:58How is the White House contextualizing the trip that just wrapped up here?
01:01I think a lot's been made of the closeness of the relationship as the U.S. sees it, or as
01:04the administration sees it, between President Trump and President Xi.
01:08And they've nodded to the fact that there's been this invitation for President Xi to come to the States in
01:12September.
01:12And there'll be these other opportunities on the heels of that for these two leaders to get together.
01:16How much emphasis are they placing on these deliverables amidst some criticism, I think, that maybe the numbers weren't as
01:21big as a lot of people, especially on Wall Street, thought they would be.
01:24And there wasn't kind of a dialing back of the tariffs that were put in place to the extent that
01:28a lot of people expected.
01:30Yeah, I mean, I think there was huge expectation going into this that this was going to largely focus on,
01:37you know, stabilizing trade, talking about Iran and any cooperation the U.S. could get with China there in terms
01:48of, you know, international support.
01:50But I think the White House has so far framed this as a huge success.
01:55We heard from the president yesterday.
01:58You know, he has praised it as a fantastic visit.
02:02He very much was, you know, regaled by all the pomp and pageantry that she had rolled out for him.
02:11But a lot of this, you know, as you said, we saw Treasury Secretary Scott Besant and U.S. Trade
02:18Rep. Jameson Greer sort of lay the groundwork for some of the deals that we've heard about so far, talking
02:25about setting up a board of trade to, you know, open up investment in non-critical sectors.
02:32Again, you know, we had expected with the cadre of CEOs, U.S. CEOs attending this summit, that there would
02:43be more deals on opening up China, China's market.
02:48We haven't yet to see that.
02:50I think there was huge expectation that A.I. would be a huge talking point with the addition, the last
02:56minute addition of NVIDIA's Jensen Huang, who jumped on Air Force One in Alaska.
03:03But none of that seemed to come to fruition.
03:05And, you know, we'll be watching in the days ahead to see if any of those deals, anything along those
03:12sort of deals might materialize from the White House.
03:15Courtney, don't go anywhere.
03:16We want to bring in Jennifer Welch.
03:17She's Bloomberg Economics Chief, Geoeconomics Analyst.
03:20The other thing that I feel like, Jennifer, we didn't hear as much about and were expecting to, or a
03:25lot of industry folks were hoping to, was some more cooperation on critical minerals.
03:31China has really the lockdown not only on the actual minerals themselves, but almost all of the refinement now is
03:37done there in the processing, even when they're coming from other places, including Australia.
03:40Do we make any progress there?
03:42Is there any inclination that this was even discussed to a significant amount?
03:46And if not, what does that mean?
03:48You're absolutely right.
03:49That was kind of the elephant in the room that China wields this massive leverage over critical minerals.
03:54It was the focus of a showdown between the U.S. and China last year after President Trump-type tariffs.
03:59And even though China has put in place licensing and other regulations to allow the flow of many of those
04:06minerals to resume to the United States, there are still restrictions, particularly on those that are headed for defense end
04:12uses.
04:13And that's obviously a concern that the United States is going to need to bring back stockpiles and munitions that's
04:18used up in Iran.
04:19And also this lingering question of some regulations that China has put in place over the last few months that
04:24seem to be aimed at frustrating any efforts by the U.S.
04:28or its allies to de-risk and to develop alternative, diversified supply chains away from China.
04:34But as you mentioned, that didn't seem to come up in the meeting.
04:37And there's no clarity on whether there's going to be any further relaxation from the Chinese side or if this
04:42is going to continue to be a focal point of tensions.
04:45Jennifer, let me focus on another supply chain.
04:46I know you've been paying very close attention to for a long while now, and that's the supply chain involving
04:51chips, especially those that are made on Taiwan.
04:53Of course, Taiwan did come up, brought up first by President Xi, and we've seen President Trump talk more about
04:58it on the heels of President Xi's comments,
05:00although there was a delay in terms of the U.S. responding to what the Chinese president had to say.
05:05But in an interview with Brett Baer on Fox News, the president was asked about that supply chain, the chip
05:09supply chain in Taiwan, and here's what he had to say.
05:11I'd like to see everybody making chips over in Taiwan come into America, because to be honest with you, I
05:16think it's the greatest thing you can do.
05:18Because it's a heated situation, there's no question about it.
05:21And as you know, we have massive amounts of chip companies now from Taiwan already coming in.
05:28We expect to have 40 to 50 percent of the world chip business by the end of my term, and
05:34I think it should be even more than that.
05:36I think all of those chip companies, if they're smart, they're going to start heading to Arizona and the places
05:41where they're building.
05:42That's going to solve your problem.
05:44That's going to solve your problem, the president says.
05:46So, Jeffers, kind of situate that in the broader conversation surrounding Taiwan.
05:49I think there are probably a lot of lawmakers who are a bit startled by the fact that there wasn't
05:52a more forceful message from President Trump about Taiwan, about this weapons deal.
05:55And then you had him really expounding quite a bit here on this one commercial side of that relationship.
06:02Your reaction to it, and again, kind of I'd love for you to situate that in the broader conversation about
06:05the relationship as it stands.
06:07So, I think heading into the summit, there was a lot of concern, including for myself as someone who used
06:12to be in charge of writing these talking points for the president,
06:15about what the discussion on Taiwan would be, because it requires really careful, delicate language.
06:20And President Trump is known for straying from formal talking points.
06:24I think what you heard, including in that interview and what he said on the ground, including to reporters,
06:29wasn't necessarily the worst case scenario for Taiwan, but it was far from a full-throated defense of both U
06:36.S. policy to support Taiwan's defense
06:38and the idea of deterring China from ever testing that proposition.
06:42And I think there's a couple of reasons for that.
06:44First, Trump has always been skeptical about supporting Taiwan and other partners.
06:48That's something that actually Bloomberg News has reported on for years, including when he was last on the campaign trail.
06:53The second factor is I think he's quite cognizant of China's leverage over critical minerals.
06:58And he probably heard not just publicly from Xi in remarks before the meeting began, but privately and behind closed
07:04doors,
07:05how Beijing is quite concerned about U.S. arms sales, especially this reported $14 billion package
07:11that is apparently waiting on President Trump's signature.
07:14He was pretty noncommittal on what he would do with that package once he gets back in Washington.
07:19And that alone is a deviation from U.S. policy, which is to support Taiwan's defense,
07:25including through arms sales, and not negotiate those sales with Beijing.
07:29Courtney, I also want to ask you about the visit that's coming on the heels of this visit,
07:34and that's President Putin has announced this morning that he will be heading to Beijing for a visit as well.
07:39There is this theory, and Putin has allegedly been a big proponent of this theory of spheres of influence.
07:45His argument is that Russia should get free reign in Ukraine and Eastern Europe,
07:50China should get free reign in Asia, and the President Trump and the Americans can handle our own hemisphere.
07:56This has been an argument that depending on the day or who's been in front of them,
08:00the President seems to be amenable to, if not all in so far.
08:04What does it say to you that Putin is going to meet with Xi,
08:07two people who would very much like the U.S. to take a step back in both of those theaters,
08:11right on the heels of this summit, and I wonder who you think they'll be talking about while they're in
08:15the room together?
08:17Well, the obvious answer is Donald Trump, of course, right?
08:21So, you know, this is something President Putin said.
08:24He was watching Trump's visit very closely.
08:30It should come as no surprise that he would want to follow up with a visit to Xi
08:35to make sure they're completely aligned to your point about the spheres of influence.
08:40That is something that the U.S. largely agreed with in the national security statement they released last year,
08:48in which they wanted to reassert U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere.
08:53They've, of course, seemingly gotten a little distracted in Iran.
08:58But, you know, this is something that I'd expect – it didn't come as a surprise to me
09:05to hear that Vladimir Putin would be traveling to China on the heels of Donald Trump's visit.
09:12Courtney, you've taken us right to where I wanted us to go.
09:14And, Jennifer, I want to ask you just about the broader strategy the U.S. has toward China
09:18and maybe to tee up that part of this conversation.
09:20Let me play a bit of sound that our colleague Michelle Hussain had a conversation with Kishore Mahbubani,
09:24the former president of Singapore.
09:26Let's hear what he had to say about the role that the U.S. is playing vis-Ã -vis China
09:29and how much success the U.S. could have kind of keeping China at bay.
09:34It's not wise policy of the United States to stop the rise of China
09:40because China can no longer be stopped.
09:44And the only way to stop China is to ask the Chinese government
09:50to stop improving the livelihood of its own people, right?
09:55If you want China, that's the only way that China will stop growing.
10:00But China still has a long way to go.
10:03Its per capita income is way behind that of the United States.
10:08There's a long way to go.
10:10I misspoke there, Mahbubani, the former Singaporean diplomat.
10:13But Jennifer, let me go to you on that point.
10:15As Christina talks about these spheres of influence, how even are those spheres?
10:19How much influence do you see the U.S. having here?
10:21And how much time and attention and eagerness does the U.S. under President Trump have to
10:26stop China to the degree that it can?
10:29Well, I think that's a major risk in Trump's second term, especially with the ongoing war
10:33in the Middle East, which is quite literally pulling time, resources and energy out of
10:38the Indo-Pacific and directing them towards the Middle East, including missile defense
10:43systems that, for example, our Asian allies very much depend on.
10:47And what that's symbolic of is something that's been a trend in U.S. foreign policy for over
10:52a decade now, which is a desire to want to focus on the Indo-Pacific, the world's most dynamic
10:57economic region, home to places, as you mentioned, David, Taiwan, critical supply chains, and
11:02yet constantly getting pulled in other directions and distractions.
11:06And I think that continues to be a theme here, even though President Trump just made this
11:10trip to China.
11:10What's interesting is he didn't stop anywhere else along the way.
11:13And that's sort of a departure from precedent.
11:15Normally, U.S. presidents make a China trip part of a larger trip to the region and use it
11:20as an opportunity to signal U.S. presidents everywhere there.
11:23And in this case, that was sort of a missed opportunity.
11:26Christina, you were there when Trump walked across the border into North Korea.
11:29I was.
11:30And that was a multi-part trip as well.
11:32And I covered Pompeo the first term.
11:33And every time we went to Asia, we stopped in Vietnam.
11:35Every single time, we always hit different places the U.S. was trying to get agreements
11:39with.
11:40Courtney, very quickly before we let you go, we've pivoted to Asia.
11:43We've pivoted back.
11:44He's back in D.C., the president doing executive time.
11:46What is next up on the agenda as far as foreign policy meetings go with the president?
11:52Well, I think we'll be watching to see if the president follows through with a call to
11:58Taiwan's President Lai.
11:59He made reference to this.
12:01He said he needed to speak to the person who is running Taiwan, which appeared to be a reference
12:07to President Lai.
12:09So we'll be watching to see if that phone call happens.
12:12That, of course, would draw China's ire.
12:15But I expect we'll also hear the president speaking to a lot of Republicans who are trying
12:21to shape what happens next and push Trump towards signing off on this arms deal.
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