Donald Trump visited Beijing alongside the billionaire CEOs of a dozen top US corporations. His failure to pressure China to meet his demands demonstrated how Washington lost the trade war.
I am on the bartering bandwagon as to how China does trade to build independence while avoiding tariffs / sanctions. They're rebuilding Nicaragua's Punta Huete International Airport. The 'loan' is being paid back by awarding about one million hectares (roughly 8.5% of the country's territory) to China for mining gold.
Nothing Musk does is especially wise and in the realm of etiquette I think it's fair to say he's demonstrated not only ignorance but willful defiance. If the kid was young enough he might have been the best behaved, most interesting human the US delegation brought. I certainly wouldn't want to have to sit in a room with that coterie of selfishness.
Trump is just the symptom of the failures of American foreign policies across the globe. From Vietnam, Iraq contra, Iraq, Ukraine, Nord Stream pipelines sabotage and now the war in Iran. China like all members of the global south, they have been watching closely.
America has become an empire that demonstrates a lack of understanding of the wider world and how that world is swiftly charging. These changes are also visible among Europeans.. A long time group of allies who are now rethinking their commitment to the American project.
Like it or not, the empire is in decline. Better to accept those facts and make the appropriate adjustments in order to mitigate the fall.
Every economic weapon reveals the true dependency map when its actually deployed, and sometimes the map shows the opposite of what the strategy assumed. Sanctions on Russia revealed European energy dependency was deeper than anyone in Brussels had priced. The trade war on China has revealed that American corporate dependency on Chinese markets and manufacturing was deeper than Washington had priced. Economic weapons function simultaneously as instruments of coercion and instruments of disclosure, and the disclosure part is the one strategists consistently undervalue.
The CEO delegation is itself the disclosure. When the executives of your largest companies physically accompany the president to a rival capital, the dependency structure is no longer theoretical, its visible on the tarmac. And the strategic implication compounds because every year of Chinese domestic substitution reduces the leverage that technology restrictions were supposed to provide. The trade war accelerated exactly the self-sufficiency programme it was designed to prevent, which means the negotiating hand weakens between summits rather than strengthening. the next president who flies to Beijing will have less leverage than this one, regardless of who it is or what they promise.
Trump & his US billionaire beggars all FAIL in China. What a pack of idiots! What did they expect?!
Gracias por su análisis
They are learning that they can't push anyone around anymore except Europe
I am on the bartering bandwagon as to how China does trade to build independence while avoiding tariffs / sanctions. They're rebuilding Nicaragua's Punta Huete International Airport. The 'loan' is being paid back by awarding about one million hectares (roughly 8.5% of the country's territory) to China for mining gold.
https://tinyurl.com/5a9shdm3
like Trump, Musk also brought (some of) his family to the high-level US business meeting in China - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcT0si8qTGQ
not sure if it's wise to bring one's children to such a politically-laden meeting between two world leaders.
Nothing Musk does is especially wise and in the realm of etiquette I think it's fair to say he's demonstrated not only ignorance but willful defiance. If the kid was young enough he might have been the best behaved, most interesting human the US delegation brought. I certainly wouldn't want to have to sit in a room with that coterie of selfishness.
Trump is just the symptom of the failures of American foreign policies across the globe. From Vietnam, Iraq contra, Iraq, Ukraine, Nord Stream pipelines sabotage and now the war in Iran. China like all members of the global south, they have been watching closely.
America has become an empire that demonstrates a lack of understanding of the wider world and how that world is swiftly charging. These changes are also visible among Europeans.. A long time group of allies who are now rethinking their commitment to the American project.
Like it or not, the empire is in decline. Better to accept those facts and make the appropriate adjustments in order to mitigate the fall.
Never thought I'd be wishing I lived in the good old days of Nixon's administration.
Good summary, Ben.
Every economic weapon reveals the true dependency map when its actually deployed, and sometimes the map shows the opposite of what the strategy assumed. Sanctions on Russia revealed European energy dependency was deeper than anyone in Brussels had priced. The trade war on China has revealed that American corporate dependency on Chinese markets and manufacturing was deeper than Washington had priced. Economic weapons function simultaneously as instruments of coercion and instruments of disclosure, and the disclosure part is the one strategists consistently undervalue.
The CEO delegation is itself the disclosure. When the executives of your largest companies physically accompany the president to a rival capital, the dependency structure is no longer theoretical, its visible on the tarmac. And the strategic implication compounds because every year of Chinese domestic substitution reduces the leverage that technology restrictions were supposed to provide. The trade war accelerated exactly the self-sufficiency programme it was designed to prevent, which means the negotiating hand weakens between summits rather than strengthening. the next president who flies to Beijing will have less leverage than this one, regardless of who it is or what they promise.
The whole Trump China trip reeks of "this could have been an email" lol