Dem
47
GOP
53
Donald Trump is heading to China Thursday to make deals with China's leader, Xi Jinping. Xi has no doubt been prepping for the meeting for weeks, talking to Chinese experts in every area that might come up. Trump has been busy figuring out how to lose the war in Iran in a way that he can blame someone else for it.
What seems a bit odd here is that last week the State Dept. sanctioned three Chinese companies for helping Iran in the war. This adds a new wrinkle to the meeting. Unfortunately, Trump cannot remember more than one thing at a time, so if all he cares about are these three companies, Xi might give Trump what he wants with respect to them and spend the rest of the day eating Trump's lunch.
Another disturbing issue about the meeting is the small herd of American CEOs who will accompany him. They (and maybe Trump) will be focused on making deals that help their companies. If China agrees to buy more Boeing airplanes that will be nice, but it will distract Trump from issues of geopolitical importance, such as safeguarding Taiwan, limiting China's expansion into the South China Sea, using the sale of rare earths for blackmail, China's buying advanced AI chips from Nvidia, Chinese investments in major U.S. companies, Chinese spying on the U.S. government and companies, and much more. Xi will be fully briefed on all these issues and have his position carefully worked out in advance and will not budge. Fundamentally, Trump does not understand that China is America's mortal enemy. It is not a friend or even a neutral business partner.
Xi is sure to dangle lucrative deals for Trump's cronies in front of him and Trump is sure to be dazzled into dropping the tariffs and forgetting about all the key geopolitical issues. If China offers to build factories in the U.S. to make cars and create jobs, Trump will be jubilant, not realizing that China's goal is not to make money on the cars, which it might sell at a loss, but to destroy the U.S. auto industry. Xi's advisers have surely told him that he needs to get in the mindset of dealing with a young child who will give away everything he has got in return for a big bowl of ice cream right now.
Republican senators are well aware of this threat but are powerless to influence Trump. Half a dozen of them and some Democrats signed onto a resolution sponsored by Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) warning Trump about China's threats to U.S. national security and economic security. Trump will just ignore Ricketts and focus on getting some good trade deals for his cronies. (V)