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  • Merz arrives in China seeking deeper economic, diplomatic ties

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    German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Wednesday he aims to expand economic and diplomatic ties with China, stressing the need for closer cooperation as global tensions remain elevated.

    “I attach great importance to maintaining and deepening these relations wherever possible,” Merz said at the start of his inaugural two-day visit to China as chancellor, speaking alongside Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang at a meeting in Beijing.

    Merz underlined the importance of working closely with China at a European level. “We share responsibility in the world, and we should live up to that responsibility together,” he said, adding there was “great potential for further growth” on both sides.

    Open channels of communication were essential, he said, announcing visits by several ministers in the coming months.

    Li described ties with Berlin as “stable.”

    He pointed to “changes in the international situation” and, in light of unilateralism and protectionism “in some countries and regions,” called for “jointly safeguarding multilateralism and free trade.”

    Five intergovernmental agreements were signed in the presence of Li and Merz, including accords to continue cooperation on climate change and the fight against animal diseases. Agreements were also concluded between the two countries’ football and table tennis associations.

    Merz arrived in Beijing earlier in the day and was received with military honours at the Great Hall of the People.

    Merz to address fair competition, security issues

    He is later due to meet President Xi Jinping for talks and a dinner expected to focus on economic cooperation and security issues, including Russia’s war in Ukraine. China is regarded as a key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    Concerns over fair competition are expected to be on top on the agenda. German businesses have called on Merz to raise issues such as overcapacity and export controls on critical raw materials in China, which overtook the US as Germany’s main trading partner in 2025.

    German carmakers in particular have long complained of fierce Chinese competition boosted by domestic subsidies and unequal market access.

    Export restrictions introduced last year on rare earths – critical raw materials used in products such as mobile phones and electric motors – have added to the woes and fuelled tensions between Berlin and Beijing.

    Merz is being accompanied by a delegation of top business representatives and is also scheduled to visit the southern city of Hangzhou.

    He underscored the importance of maintaining a stable relationship with Beijing ahead of his departure on Tuesday evening.

    “It would be a mistake to seek to decouple from China,” Merz said. By severing ties with China “we would be shooting ourselves in the foot. We would be ruining our own economic opportunities,” while failing to make the world “a safer place.”

    Merz’s first visit to a major Asian power as chancellor was a trip to India in January, in a sign that Germany is looking to diversify its alliances amid a rapidly changing political landscape.

    At the Munich Security Conference earlier this month, Merz proclaimed the end of the old rules-based international order and also pointed the finger at Beijing, saying it “systematically exploits the dependencies of others” while trying to reshape the international system to suit its own purposes.

    Merz to move Xi on Ukraine?

    Germany has long criticized Beijing for maintaining an outwardly neutral stance on Russia’s war in Ukraine, with Merz hoping to convince Xi to back negotiations to an end to the conflict.

    “If Xi Jinping were to tell Putin tomorrow to stop, then he would have to stop the day after tomorrow,” the German leader said on Monday at an editorial conference hosted by dpa, noting that China continues to support Russia by purchasing oil and gas and supplying technology for the war.

    Beijing is considered Russia’s most important backer since most Western nations cut ties with Moscow following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine four years ago.

    The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Tuesday stressed that the war in Ukraine should not strain relations between Europe and China and that Beijing supports diplomatic efforts to find a political solution.

    Merz said he was hoping for “open discussions” with Xi.

    “I simply want to try to understand the president. Conversely, I want to try to explain our position, my personal position in Germany and in Europe, how I view certain global developments, and what we might be able to do together.”

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  • Did China Make Up a Gambling Suicide Story?

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    Posted on: February 16, 2026, 11:30h. 

    Last updated on: February 16, 2026, 11:30h.

    • China is warning its people not to gamble overseas
    • The CPC cited a gambler’s recent suicide in Singapore, though no media or police report has detailed such an incident

    Ahead of the Chinese New Year, China is warning its people that gambling while on holiday poses significant risks, including financial ruin and even suicide.

    China casino gambling New Year holiday
    The New Year Lantern Festival, celebrating the Year of the Horse at Shanghai Yu Garden, is pictured on Feb. 11, 2026. China is warning its people to avoid gambling if traveling cross-border during the holiday period. (Image: Shutterstock)

    China bans casino gambling everywhere on the mainland. The only place under China’s control where casinos are allowed is in Macau, a semi-autonomous Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People’s Republic.

    By law, Chinese citizens and residents are barred from gambling in foreign countries, though, of course, that doesn’t keep many from doing so while in Australia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Las Vegas.

    The 2026 Chinese New Year is tomorrow, Feb. 17. The Year of the Fire Horse, the Spring Festival holiday period, which began Sunday, runs through Monday, Feb. 23. During the celebration, most workers are afforded paid time off and take their families on vacations, with Singapore, Macau, and other parts of Southeast Asia popular destinations.

    China: Don’t Gamble Overseas

    Chinese President Xi Jinping links cross-border gambling to heightened national security risks. China has always prohibited casinos from marketing their operations to mainlanders.

    In one high-profile case in 2017, China imprisoned 19 employees of Australia-based Crown Resorts for promoting gambling trips Down Under. Jason O’Connor, then the head of Crown’s international VIP program, spent 18 months in a Chinese prison, often described as among the world’s most brutal detention centers.

    With the Chinese New Year in full swing, the CPC, through its embassies, is reminding Chinese people not to gamble internationally. Casino.org obtained and translated the gambling warning issued by the Chinese Embassy in Singapore.

    The Chinese Embassy in Singapore once again solemnly reminds Chinese tourists visiting Singapore and Chinese citizens in Singapore to strengthen their legal awareness and stay away from gambling,” read the notice from the Singaporean Chinese Embassy.

    Singapore is home to two casinos in Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa.

    Suicide Story Fabricated?

    The Chinese Embassy in Singapore said gambling comes with significant risks to Chinese people. The Embassy cited a recent incident involving a Chinese tourist at Marina Bay Sands who killed himself after gambling.

    Recently, a Chinese citizen jumped to his death after gambling at the Marina Bay Sands. The Embassy is guiding his family through the funeral arrangements,” the notice said.

    However, there have been no local media or police reports of such a recent suicide at Marina Bay Sands. No story has been made public about any suicide within or from the integrated resort in months.

    “In recent years, our Embassy has handled several deaths related to gambling and has previously issued relevant warnings. Gambling is strictly prohibited under Chinese law, and the amendment to the Criminal Law has formally criminalized cross-border gambling. Even if overseas casinos are legally operating, Chinese citizens who gamble across borders are suspected of violating Chinese law, especially those involved in organizing gambling activities, and will be held legally responsible. The Embassy and consulates cannot provide consular protection for illegal activities,” the statement continued.

    “Participating in gambling leads to financial ruin, family breakdown, and even death. Cross-border gambling may also bring risks such as fraud, money laundering, kidnapping, illegal detention, human trafficking, and human smuggling,” the Embassy notice concluded.  

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    Devin O’Connor

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  • Xi Jinping’s Purge and What Trump’s Foreign Policy Means for China

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    Were there different phases of this anti-corruption drive, and did its contours reveal something about Xi’s political priorities?

    At first, Xi focussed very heavily on the security services—the source of hard power on the civilian side. This allowed Xi to rip apart networks of people in the security services who didn’t necessarily support him, then put his own people in and build up that support. If you’re the dictator and you’re trying to insure that your personal position is secure, you need to consolidate and control the sources of hard power. And the civilian side was really the richest target and the easiest target for him, easier than going after the P.L.A. The P.L.A. has been successful at resisting lots of reforms and cleanups over the years. So he targeted the civilian side first, and then he started working through the P.L.A.

    When did that start with the P.L.A.?

    The real turning point that signalled that something big was going to happen was the fall of 2014. Back in 1929, Mao had convened the Gutian Conference, which was really about the C.C.P. taking control of the military and really about Mao consolidating his power. Xi effectively reënacted this in 2014, summoning all the top generals to Gutian, and it was clear from the messaging that came out of that meeting, and the steps Xi took afterward, that this was the beginning of this massive anti-corruption campaign inside the P.L.A. I think this had multiple objectives. There was real corruption. There was a massive problem in the P.L.A. where, if you wanted to get promoted to certain levels, you had to actually buy that promotion. So various people would put money up because they figured once this person got promoted, they could get a return, since it would open up all these graft opportunities. It was almost like they were angel-investing in a P.L.A. officer.

    There was also the question for Xi was how to unravel these networks and put your own people in, so that you ultimately have control over the P.L.A., and it becomes the kind of fighting force you want.

    Does the purging of Zhang Youxia make sense within this strategy, or does it seem like something new?

    Zhang was promoted and thrived during the incredibly corrupt era of Hu’s leadership. He oversaw, for a period of time, the P.L.A.’s equipment department and its weapons-development and -acquisition programs, which, given how much the P.L.A.’s budget has increased over the past several decades, had massive graft opportunities. And, since that Gutian meeting, the C.C.P. has been rooting through the top ranks of the P.L.A. Now, the Central Military Commission has been reduced from seven members to Xi and one vice-chairman: Zhang Shengmin.

    But why now, and why so quickly? That is something that I don’t have a great answer for. And I have not found anybody who has a great answer. Some people argue that, in order to make an accusation like this, you have to work up the vine, and you have to build cases, which becomes harder and harder the more senior they are. There are rumors that Zhang was building a putsch against Xi. But I think that’s bullshit, and ultimately we really don’t know. It is such a black box.

    One theory behind Xi’s military purges you did not bring up was that he wants people who are in line with his foreign-policy priorities.

    I talked about how he needed to clean out corruption because he wanted to build a professional fighting force. That is absolutely one of the reasons. It’s about the combination of control over the P.L.A. and insuring the P.L.A. leadership has the right political standing or political positioning, but it is also about having an actually competent P.L.A. that has good weapons, and can fight. The leadership is constantly talking about fighting and winning. Xi’s stated goals for the P.L.A. are all about actually being able to fight and win wars and becoming a world-class army.

    Sure, but any leader of any country, democratic, nondemocratic, whatever else, is going to want a military that’s competent. But you may also want a military leadership explicitly aligned with your foreign-policy priorities, whatever those may be. And those strike me as different things.

    I think what you’re getting at is the speculation out there that perhaps this latest round of purges was triggered by the fact that Zhang Youxia was not aligned with Xi on Taiwan, for example, and that there was some sort of discord between what Xi thought the P.L.A. should do and what the generals wanted. It’s possible, but I am skeptical of that because I think that the way the system is structured, it would be pretty shocking if the most senior generals had been really pushing back on Xi around that. It’s possible, but we just don’t know, and that’s the problem.

    Do we know what happens to high-ranking figures who are purged?

    On the civilian side, they’ll usually have a trial, and then it’ll be announced that they’re getting sentenced for some range of years, or for life. Rarely do senior civilian officials get executed. It has happened to some of the people in the financial system who were purged, but in general, they get sent off to a pretty comfortable prison life at a sort of Club Fed-type facility outside of Beijing. On the military side, we don’t know.

    There has been a lot of concern about how President Trump has alienated NATO allies in recent months, leading to questions about how this may reshape American foreign policy in some fundamental way. Do you have any sense of whether the Chinese government thinks the Trump era could dramatically reshape international relations? And could that be to China’s advantage?

    I think if you go back to what Xi has been saying for years, he’s been talking about how we are in an era where there are changes in the global landscape unseen in a century, and the Trump Administration’s recent moves just reinforce what he’s been saying about how the world is changing. So the C.C.P. absolutely does think that the world is changing.

    I think it’s a mixed bag for them. On the one hand, it’s creating a lot of opportunities for their external propaganda approach, which for many years has been about weakening the U.S. position in the global order as much as they can. We are now helping them with that cause in a lot of ways, more than maybe some previous Administrations did. But, at the same time, the C.C.P. also benefitted a lot from the U.S.-led order. They are, I think, concerned about some sort of sudden collapse into real chaos. And so I think they would prefer to see a managed decline of the order, where they can more thoughtfully find ways to exploit it, which I think they’ve already been doing over the last decade or so.

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    Isaac Chotiner

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  • Macau Problem Gambling Surges After Casinos Pivot to Public

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    Posted on: January 22, 2026, 12:44h. 

    Last updated on: January 21, 2026, 03:11h.

    • Macau is seeing more people than ever seeking help for their gambling disorders
    • A record number of people self-excluded from casinos in 2025

    Macau is experiencing a rise in problem gambling. The increase in the number of people seeking help for their gambling comes after the enclave’s casinos pivoted from the VIP and high roller to the premium mass and general public player.

    Macau casinos problem gambling China
    People wait on a bus that’s enroute to Wynn Macau. Macau’s focus on the mass and general public is leading to higher rates of problem gambling in the Chinese region. (Image: AFP via Getty Images)

    Macau is the world’s richest casino market, with the six gaming operators combining to win $30.9 billion from their table games and slot machines in 2025. The $30.9 billion was the highest annual gross gaming revenue (GGR) mark since 2019.

    How Macau’s casinos generate GGR, however, has changed drastically since the COVID-19 pandemic. Once a gambling hub largely reserved for Mainland China’s wealthiest elite, Beijing used the global health crisis to alter how Macau ticks.

    The People’s Republic and President Xi Jinping shuttered the VIP junket model. The businesses were accused of facilitating the transfer of money from the communist regime to Macau, a Special Administration Region under Chinese control that’s considered a tax haven.

    Junkets and Macau’s casinos colluded to bring mainland high rollers to the city. Customers were typically afforded a line of casino credit close to the amount of money they paid the junket for their lavish trip and accommodations. Such high rollers gambled in private rooms on high-stakes games of baccarat, with per-bet hands often upwards of $10,000.

    Macau Problem Gambling 

    In exchange for 10-year casino license extensions, Beijing and Macau forced Sands, Wynn, MGM, Galaxy, Melco, and SJM to invest $16 billion in non-gaming projects. The agreement was designed to alter Macau from a high-stakes gambling paradise to a destination for leisure travel, family-friendly vacations, and business.

    The VIP gambling rooms are largely no more. Macau casinos have instead widened their marketing focus, and, so far, their multibillion-dollar bets on non-gaming are helping drive gaming, too. But Macau government officials say it’s also driving gambling problems.

    Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau reports that 828 people removed their access to casinos in 2025. In 2024, only 475 individuals requested self-exclusion.

    During the seven years from 2013 through 2019, Macau’s self-exclusion program averaged 341 new enrollees each year. There were 254 self-exclusions in 2020, 359 in 2021, 292 in 2022, and 418 in 2023.

    There were another 124 people who were excluded last year through third-party-initiated requests, typically a family member or close friend. The individual must agree to be excluded before a third-party application is executed.

    The total number of exclusions includes exclusions requested by casinos. Excluded people are banned from entering casinos in Macau for a term of two years. 

    Macau Market Maturation

    Following the overhaul of the Macau gaming industry, analysts at S&P are predicting a stabilization of gaming revenues after three years of growth.

    Macau’s gaming boom is fading. The sector will be moving from a post-pandemic rebound to a more maturity-driven phase, as capacity limits and potentially softer mass demand temper growth,” the S&P note read.

    “We think 2026 revenue growth will slow, but steady operations, selective share gains, and deleveraging still support modest upside,” the brokerage predicted.

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    Devin O’Connor

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  • Canada agrees to cut tariff on Chinese electric vehicles in break with the U.S.

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    Breaking with the United States, Canada has agreed to cut its 100% tariff on Chinese electric cars in return for lower tariffs on Canadian farm products, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Friday.

    Carney made the announcement after two days of meetings with Chinese leaders. He said there would be an initial annual cap of 49,000 vehicles on Chinese EV exports to Canada, growing to about 70,000 over five years. China will reduce its total tariff on canola seeds, a major Canadian export, from 84% to about 15%, he told reporters.

    Carney said China has become a more predictable partner to deal with than the U.S., the country’s neighbor and longtime ally.

    “Our relationship has progressed in recent months with China. It is more predictable and you see results coming from that,” Carney said.

    Carney hasn’t been able to reach a deal with President Trump to reduce some tariffs that are punishing some key sectors of the Canadian economy and Mr. Trump has previously talked about making Canada the 51st state.

    The prime minister, speaking outside against the backdrop of a traditional pavilion and a frozen pond at a Beijing park, said meetings in China have been historic and productive.

    Earlier Friday, he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping pledged to improve relations between their two nations after years of acrimony.

    Xi told Carney in a meeting at the Great Hall of the People that he is willing to continue working to improve ties, noting that talks have been underway on restoring and restarting cooperation since the two held an initial meeting in October on the sidelines of a regional economic conference in South Korea.

    “It can be said that our meeting last year opened a new chapter in turning China-Canada relations toward improvement,” China’s top leader said.

    Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Jan. 16, 2026.

    Xie Huanchi/Xinhua via Getty Images


    Carney looks to improve global governance

    Carney, the first Canadian prime minister to visit China in eight years, told Xi that better relations would help improve a global governance system that he described as “under great strain.”

    Later, he said at the news conference that the system may give way at least in part to country-to-country or regional agreements rather than the global ones that have underpinned economic growth in the post-World War II era.

    “The question is: What gets built in that place? How much of a patchwork is it?” he said.

    The new reality reflects in large part the so-called America-first approach of Mr. Trump. The tariffs he has imposed have hit both the Canadian and Chinese economies. Carney, who has met with several leading Chinese companies in Beijing, said ahead of his trip that his government is focused on building an economy less reliant on the U.S. at what he called “a time of global trade disruption.”

    A Canadian business owner in China called Carney’s visit game-changing, saying it re-establishes dialogue, respect and a framework between the two nations.

    “These three things we didn’t have,” said Jacob Cooke, the CEO of WPIC Marketing + Technologies, which helps exporters navigate the Chinese market. “The parties were not talking for years.”

    Canada had been aligned with U.S. on tariffs

    Canada had followed the U.S. in putting tariffs of 100% on EVs from China and 25% on steel and aluminum under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Carney’s predecessor.

    China responded by imposing duties of 100% on Canadian canola oil and meal and 25% on pork and seafood. It added a 75.8% tariff on canola seeds last August. Collectively, the import taxes effectively closed the Chinese market to Canadian canola, an industry group has said. Overall, China’s imports from Canada fell 10.4% last year to $41.7 billion, according to Chinese trade data.

    Carney tried to address the concerns of Canadian automakers and autoworkers by saying the initial cap on Chinese EV imports was about 3% of the 1.8 million vehicles sold in Canada annually and that, in exchange, China is expected to begin investing in the Canadian auto industry within three years.

    More than half of the Chinese EVs exported to Canada would have an import price of less than 35,000 Canadian dollars ($25,000) within five years, he said, making them accessible to consumers.

    “We’re building (a) new part of our car industry, building cars of the future in partnership, bringing affordable autos for Canadians at a time when affordability is top of mind, and doing it at a scale that allows for a smooth transition in the sector,” he said.

    “For the exchange of a small piece of the Canadian market, we have a commitment. We are waiting for an investment commitment in Canada. The real leaders of the new industry. So it’s an agreement that will create the future for our industry.”

    China sees an opening under Trump

    China is hoping Mr. Trump’s pressure tactics on allies such as Canada will drive them to pursue a foreign policy that is less aligned with the United States.

    Carney, though, noted Canada’s relationship with the U.S. is much more multifaceted, deeper and broader. Canada and China have different systems and disagree on issues such as human rights, he said, limiting the scope of their engagement even as they seek ways to cooperate on areas of common interest.

    The Canadian leader leaves China on Saturday and visits Qatar on Sunday before attending the annual gathering of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland next week. He will meet business leaders and investors in Qatar to promote trade and investment, his office said.

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  • MARTIN GURRI: Let’s look at all the global benefits Trump reaped by grabbing Maduro

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    A certain class of analysts was purported to be scandalized by the American night raid on Venezuela that snatched away strongman Nicolás Maduro and his wife.

    China has been given a green light to invade Taiwan. Russia is finally free to trespass on… I don’t know, maybe Ukraine?

    Even by today’s declining standards, that line of analysis is pathetically shallow.

    PRESIDENT TRUMP SAYS THERE WON’T BE A ‘SECOND WAVE OF ATTACKS’ AGAINST VENEZUELA DUE TO THEIR ‘COOPERATION’

    Neither Xi Jinping nor Vladimir Putin look to the U.S. for permission. The opposite is closer to the truth: They wish to make trouble and undermine the hegemonic power.

    Russia assaulted Ukraine and China conducted naval exercises in Taiwanese territorial waters, all without filling out the White House’s “Permission to Invade” form.

    What will be the lesson, for Xi and Putin, of the Great Venezuela Raid?

    I would think it’s this: that Trump will run enormous risks to protect American interests.

    TALARICO, AUCHINCLOSS: TRUMP’S BLOOD FOR OIL STRATEGY IS AS RECKLESS AS IT IS ILLEGAL

    I leave it to the intelligent reader to reflect on whether this will encourage or discourage rash adventures.

    Trump has no wish to carve the world like an apple into spheres of influence, in which China, Russia and the U.S. can plunder smaller nations at will.

    His meddling in conflicts in Africa and Asia is proof of that — and anyone who has observed Trump for longer than half a minute will know he doesn’t set boundaries on his actions.

    In reality, Trump’s style in geopolitical gamesmanship is without precedent, at least in my experience.

    TRUMP SIGNALS LONG ROAD AHEAD IN VENEZUELA IN HIS BOLDEST INTERVENTIONIST MOVE YET

    In any given theater, he looks for the tactical strike that will utterly alter the strategic landscape to our country’s advantage.

    What will be the lesson, for Xi and Putin, of the Great Venezuela Raid? I would think it’s this: that Trump will run enormous risks to protect American interests.

    After allowing the Israelis to plow and seed the field in Iran, Trump harvested a strategic victory by dropping bunker-busting bombs on the regime’s nuclear facilities. From that moment, events in the Middle East tilted in our direction — and the negative consequences for Iran continue to multiply as I write this.

    In the same manner, the extraction of Maduro from his Venezuelan fortress has had a domino effect favorable to the U.S., not just in Latin America but around the world.

    Let me count the ways.

    IN VENEZUELA ITSELF

    Here the dice are still rolling, and the final effects of the raid won’t be known for months, possibly years. Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio chose to retain the Maduro people in power over the Venezuelan democratic opposition — a gamble on stability against the possibility of chaos and violence.

    It could backfire, but the signs so far look encouraging.

    The new Venezuelan president, Delcy Rodriguez, who happened to be Maduro’s vice president, has been sweet-talking the Trump administration. She may have played a part in the overthrow of her former boss.

    LIZ PEEK: TRUMP IS PUTTING AMERICA FIRST BY BACKING IRAN INTO A CORNER

    American officials are in Caracas, setting up shop. The Cubans, Russians and Chinese would seem to be out in the cold. Political prisoners are being released.

    Most importantly from a strategic perspective, the Venezuelan oil industry is about to be resurrected with help from U.S. companies — and Venezuelan oil will soon flood global markets.

    CUBA

    Its once-vaunted military and intelligence personnel protected Maduro. In a humiliating blow to the country’s prestige, they were wiped out without much of a fight.

    Cuba imports all of its energy but lacks the foreign currency to keep the lights burning. Venezuelan oil, offered on a bartered basis, made up 60 percent of fuel imports.

    That’s now gone with the wind. Whatever still functions in the Cuban economy is about to disintegrate into darkness and silence.

    President Trump said that the post-Castro regime is “ready to fall.” He also threatened, in his inimitable all-caps fashion, “THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA – ZERO!”

    Nothing is certain.

    But if the Cuban military, who already run the country, believe that their equipment will grind to a stop within weeks, they may decide to do away with their Communist Party intermediaries and cut a deal with Yankee imperialism.

    LATIN AMERICA

    The region was already trending rightwards — Maduro’s fall will only accelerate this tendency. Conservative governments applauded American intervention, something unheard-of in Latin America.

    Radical leftist governments, on the other hand, are in a panic.

    Colombian President Gustavo Petro, once a leader of the Marxist M-19 guerrillas, made worried noises about his own fate. He got a reassuring call from the president and will visit the White House in February.

    LAWMAKER WHO FLED COMMUNISM DRAFTS SPECIAL RESOLUTION HONORING TRUMP AFTER MADURO OUSTER

    Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega, normally addicted to repression, decided to release political prisoners in imitation of Delcy Rodriguez.

    Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega arrives for the inauguration of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Jan. 10, 2019. (Bloomberg via Getty Images)

    He also canceled an anniversary celebration — just in case the U.S. military were looking to pick off more unfriendly Latin American presidents.

    CHINA

    One condition Trump placed on Rodriguez is that Venezuela end its alliance with China and Russia. Eager to survive, Rodriguez appears willing to do so.

    If that is the case, Maduro’s departure will represent a strategic disaster for Xi — the loss not only of its most useful ally in the region but of access to 800,000 barrels of cheap oil per day, along with the total loss of what has been called China’s “$100 billion gamble” on Venezuela.

    In addition, Maduro’s lair was ringed with Chinese military technology, including air defense systems. They were neutralized with remarkable ease.

    When Xi calculates the cost of invading Taiwan, he must now add the fact that the Chinese mainland itself appears vulnerable to attack from the air.

    IRAN

    Venezuela had become a playground for Iran and its terrorist proxies like Hezbollah. No more.

    As the Islamic regime battles to survive a fierce street revolt, Trump has condemned the slaughter of civilians and told protesters “help is on the way.”

    The fate of Nicolás Maduro thus weighs heavily on the ayatollahs’ minds.

    The anti-regime protesters also see the parallel with Venezuela and have cheered the president on. Video can be found of a young man, somewhere in Iran, solemnly changing a street sign to “President Trump Street.”’

    EUROPE

    Venezuela demonstrated — once again — the absolute irrelevance of the Old World in times of crisis.

    European governments couldn’t help or hinder the U.S., before or after the attack. They merely muttered from the sidelines.

    Mostly they complained about U.S. violation of international law — but then overcame their scruples long enough to inquire about the payment of Venezuelan debt to European energy companies.

    WAS TRUMP’S MADURO OPERATION ILLEGAL? WHAT INTERNATIONAL LAW HAS TO SAY

    In 10 years of repetitive squabbles, the Europeans have yet to figure out how to live in Donald Trump’s world. They have yet to admit that their static “rules-based order” has been swept away by a tempest of change of which Trump is simply the avatar, not the cause.

    It would be unfortunate if Europe’s limpness in the geopolitical arena emboldened the president to swallow Greenland whole.

    RUSSIA

    On this country will fall the most complex set of consequences.

    Even more than China, Russia enjoyed a formal “strategic partnership” with Maduro, explicitly aimed at the U.S.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro shake hands.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro shake hands as they exchange documents during a signing ceremony following their talks at the Kremlin in Moscow on May 7, 2025. (Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images)

    Venezuela purchased billions of dollars’ worth of Russian military equipment, aircraft and weaponry. Russia propped up Maduro on the world stage and endorsed his blatantly manipulated elections.

    SOCIALISM COST ME MY COUNTRY. TRUMP ARRESTING MADURO MIGHT HELP US GET IT BACK

    Putin and Maduro stood shoulder to shoulder in Moscow as recently as May 2025.

    All of that ended literally overnight. Yet, curiously, the Russians reacted to the fiasco by saying little and doing nothing.

    What’s going on?

    There is, with Russia, a bigger picture to consider.

    The country is stuck deep in the bog of the Ukraine war and has limited room to maneuver elsewhere. Western sanctions have driven Putin to a position of complete dependence on China.

    The strategic intent of Trump and his people, I believe, is to sever that link.

    They want Russia to be a competitor rather than a satellite of China. That would explain the sustained effort to broker the end to a war that otherwise has distracted and diminished an antagonistic power.

    Because Russia is a major exporter of oil and natural gas, its economy rises and falls with the global price of those commodities.

    Trump has clearly seized on this. He has hardened the sanctions on the purchase of Russian fuel, even as he works overtime to bring down the cost of energy.

    The ouster of Maduro evidently plays into this scheme. The president expects to unleash a gusher of Venezuelan oil on the markets.

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    It’s his usual trick — a tactical blow that generates enough strategic leverage to nudge Russia into peace with Ukraine.

    In this case, it hasn’t happened yet.

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    Possibly, it never will — Putin, after all, represents the Russian bear, whereas Maduro resembled a noisier but far less dangerous denizen of the tropical canopy. Frustrating American presidents is a habit the Russian leader has refined over the decades.

    But it is a sign of the strange moment we are living through — and, it may be, of Trump’s skill at converting tactics into strategic outcomes — that we can imagine a raid on a Caribbean dictator helping to end a bloody war in Eastern Europe’s heart of darkness.

    CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM MARTIN GURRI

    Martin Gurri is author of “The Revolt of the Public,” a former CIA analyst, and presently a visiting fellow at the Mercatus Center of George Mason University.

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  • China’s president Xi caught knifing Trump in brutal attack just hours after historic summit

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    For a moment, it looked like President Trump and China President Xi Jinping had buried the hatchet at APEC. 

    Then, just as eyes turned away from the Korean summit, Xi picked up an ax.  

    Trump celebrated his high-profile breakthrough with Beijing as a victory on tariffs, a promise of massive soybean purchases and an agreement to stop the flow of the chemicals that fuel fentanyl. 

    But by the next day, the smiles had vanished as Xi used his closing remarks to take an unmistakable swipe at his American rival. 

    In a pointed message delivered to business leaders, Xi took a thinly veiled swipe at Washington’s trade policies—positioning China as the champion of free markets while warning regional partners against joining America’s campaign to decouple from Chinese supply chains.

    ‘APEC economies should oppose protectionism, resist unilateral bullying and prevent the world from returning to the law of the jungle,’ he declared—words experts widely interpreted as a direct rebuke of Trump’s approach to trade. 

    This was a stark contrast to how Xi responded to Trump during their face-to-face meeting. ‘China and the US should be partners and friends,’ President Xi said during their summit. ‘This is what history has taught us and what reality demands.’

    Brent Sadler, a former military diplomat with decades of experience in Asia, believes that Xi’s post–summit remarks were both a response to the meeting and an assertion of China‘s growing power. 

    China’s President Xi Jinping speaks during the Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Gyeongju, South Korea

    US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping pose for photos ahead of a bilateral meeting at Gimhae Air Base on October 30, 2025 in Busan, South Korea. Trump is meeting Xi for the first time since taking office for his second term, following months of growing tension between both countries

    US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping pose for photos ahead of a bilateral meeting at Gimhae Air Base on October 30, 2025 in Busan, South Korea. Trump is meeting Xi for the first time since taking office for his second term, following months of growing tension between both countries

    Chinese President Xi Jinping waves to the press as he walks with US President Donald Trump at the Mar-a-Lago estate in West Palm Beach, Florida, back in 2017

    Chinese President Xi Jinping waves to the press as he walks with US President Donald Trump at the Mar–a–Lago estate in West Palm Beach, Florida, back in 2017

    Trump takes part in a welcoming ceremony with Xi Jinping on November 9, 2017 in Beijing, China on a 10-day trip to Asia

    Trump takes part in a welcoming ceremony with Xi Jinping on November 9, 2017 in Beijing, China on a 10–day trip to Asia

    ‘Trump very clearly set the stage for this meeting, flexing his position,’ Sadler said. ‘What we saw after the summit was Xi returning to familiar rhetoric. It wasn’t hostile, but it wasn’t friendly. It was more of a cold, businesslike engagement, and Xi was clearly sending a message.’

    Sadler described Xi’s comments as ‘catty,’ adding, ‘It wasn’t just a swipe; it was almost like a threat. Xi was telling others not to side with the Americans, which is a strategic move to reinforce China’s influence in the region.’ 

    This, according to Sadler, reveals the true nature of the US–China relationship — not a friendship, but a complex and tense negotiation, where both sides are playing a long game.

    This isn’t the first time the two sides have made a deal, only for it to unravel shortly after. The last agreement struck between China and the US was effectively discarded just months after being put in place. 

    ‘I have seen this movie before,’ Sadler said. ‘Promises from Beijing have often been made, but not followed through on. We’ll see if this time is any different.’ 

    Asia–region analysts tell Daily Mail that while Trump’s team may have secured some initial concessions, it remains to be seen whether these will hold up over the long term – skeptical of China’s ability to meet it’s commitments on issues like fentanyl control and export controls. 

    ‘The US needs to ensure China adheres to its commitments. The handshake deal in South Korea is only meaningful if it’s followed up with action. Trump’s team needs to keep the pressure on,’ Sadler added.

    The next big summit between Trump and Xi, expected in April, will likely reveal whether these trade talks can move beyond the surface –– and if history is any indicator –– if a part of their agreement derails. 

    A former senior Biden administration official tells the Daily Mail it’s hard to see the deal stick. One tell: No text of a joint agreement was ever released. 

    ‘President Xi has been willing to push back against Trump, so I could see him changing terms of the deal if Trump posts something in the middle of the night on X with an entirely new policy,’ the Senior Administration official said. 

    Asked for a response to Xi, a White House aide noted that the US is also playing the long game.   

    ‘We’re a threat to them, too… I think we get along very well, and I think we can be bigger, better and stronger by working with them as opposed to just knocking them out,’ the official said. 

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  • Deep Dive: Investors cautiously confident on China outlook amid trade war 2.0

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    Deep Dive- Investors cautiously confident on China outlook amid trade war 2.0

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  • Congress would target China with new restrictions in massive defense bill

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration may have softened its language on China to maintain a fragile truce in their trade war, but Congress is charging ahead with more restrictions in a defense authorization bill that would deny Beijing investments in highly sensitive sectors and reduce U.S. reliance on Chinese biotechnology companies.

    Included in the 3,000-page bill approved Wednesday by the House is a provision to scrutinize American investments in China that could help develop technologies to boost Chinese military power. The bill, which next heads to the Senate, also would prohibit government money to be used for equipment and services from blacklisted Chinese biotechnology companies.

    In addition, the National Defense Authorization Act would boost U.S. support for the self-governing island of Taiwan that Beijing claims as its own and says it will take by force if necessary.

    “Taken together, these measures reflect a serious, strategic approach to countering the Chinese Communist Party,” said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. He said the approach “stands in stark contrast to the White House’s recent actions.”

    Congress moves for harsher line toward China

    The compromise bill authorizing $900 billion for military programs was released two days after the White House unveiled its national security strategy. The Trump administration dropped Biden-era language that cast China as a strategic threat and said the U.S. “will rebalance America’s economic relationship with China,” an indication that President Donald Trump is more interested in a mutually advantageous economic relationship with Beijing than in long-term competition.

    The White House this week also allowed Nvidia to sell an advanced type of computer chip to China, with those more hawkish toward Beijing concerned that would help boost the country’s artificial intelligence.

    The China-related provisions in the traditionally bipartisan defense bill “make clear that, whatever the White House tone, Capitol Hill is locking in a hard-edged, long-term competition with Beijing,” said Craig Singleton, senior director of the China program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank.

    If passed, these provisions would “build a floor under U.S. competitiveness policy — on capital, biotech, and critical tech — that will be very hard for future presidents to unwind quietly,” he said.

    The Chinese embassy in Washington on Wednesday denounced the bill.

    “The bill has kept playing up the ‘China threat’ narrative, trumpeting for military support to Taiwan, abusing state power to go after Chinese economic development, limiting trade, economic and people-to-people exchanges between China and the U.S., undermining China’s sovereignty, security and development interests and disrupting efforts of the two sides in stabilizing bilateral relations,” said Liu Pengyu, the embassy spokesperson.

    “China strongly deplores and firmly opposes this,” Liu said.

    US investments in China

    U.S. policymakers and lawmakers have been working for several years toward bipartisan legislation to curb investments in China when it comes to cutting-edge technologies such as quantum computing, aerospace, semiconductors and artificial intelligence. Those efforts flopped last year when Tesla CEO Elon Musk opposed a spending bill.

    Musk has extensive business interests in China, including a Tesla gigafactory in the eastern city of Shanghai.

    The provision made it into the must-pass defense policy bill, welcomed by Rep. John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican who chairs the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.

    “For too long, the hard-earned money of American retirees and investors has been used to build up China’s military and economy,” he said. “This legislation will help bring that to an end.”

    Biosecurity protections

    Congress last year failed to pass the BIOSECURE Act, which cited national security in preventing federal money from benefiting a number of Chinese biotechnology companies. Critics said then that it was unfair to single out specific companies, warning that the measure would delay clinical trials and hinder development of new drugs, raise costs for medications and hurt innovation.

    The provision in the NDAA no longer names companies but leaves it to the Office of Management and Budget to compile a list of “biotechnology companies of concern.” The bill also would expand Pentagon investments in biotechnology.

    Moolenaar lauded the effort for taking “defensive action to secure American pharmaceutical supply chains and genetic information from malign Chinese companies.”

    Support for Taiwan

    The defense bill also would authorize an increase in funding, to $1 billion from $300 million this year, for Taiwan-related security cooperation and direct the Pentagon to establish a joint drone and anti-drone program.

    Another provision supports Taiwan’s bid to join the International Monetary Fund, which would provide the self-governing island with financial protection from China.

    It comes amid mixed signals from Trump, who appears careful not to upset Beijing as he seeks to strike trade deals with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The Chinese leader has urged Trump to handle the Taiwan issue “with prudence,” as Beijing considers its claim over Taiwan a core interest.

    In the new national security strategy, the White House says the U.S. does not support any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait and stresses that the U.S. should seek to deter and prevent a large-scale military conflict.

    “But the American military cannot, and should not have to, do this alone,” the document says, urging Japan and South Korea to increase defense spending.

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  • FACT FOCUS: Trump blames Biden for the agricultural trade deficit. It’s not that simple

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    As President Donald Trump announced a $12 billion farm aid package this week to help U.S. farmers hurt by tariffs, he placed responsibility for the U.S. agricultural trade deficit on former President Joe Biden.

    But in casting blame elsewhere, he is ignoring other factors, including his own role. Currently, farmers — especially those that produce soybeans and sorghum — have had a hard time selling their crops while getting hit by increasing costs after Trump raised tariffs on China earlier this year as part of a broader trade war that has contributed to the deficit.

    Experts say that it is a massive oversimplification to blame any one administration or policy.

    Here’s a closer look at the facts.

    CLAIM: There was an agricultural trade surplus during Trump’s first term that former Biden turned into an agricultural trade deficit.

    THE FACTS: This is both misleading and missing context. It is true that there was an agricultural trade surplus when Trump entered the White House in 2017, which has since become a significant deficit. However, according to experts, this can be attributed to actions taken by both administrations, as well as factors outside their control such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

    “I don’t want to let U.S. trade policy off the hook here, but it’s one element of a broader, more complicated kind of story,” said Cullen Hendrix, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

    Still, Trump held Biden solely responsible for the agricultural trade deficit at a White House roundtable Monday where he announced the farm aid package.

    “In my first term, we had an agricultural trade surplus by a lot,” the president said, misrepresenting the numbers. “We had a big surplus. We knew we were exporting American agricultural products all over the world, making a net profit and, in many cases, a very substantial profit. He came in and ruined it. Biden turned that surplus into a gaping agricultural deficit that continues to this day.”

    What the numbers show

    The yearly agricultural trade balance, which reflects the amount of those goods the U.S. has exported versus the amount it has imported, had been positive for nearly 60 years until 2019 during Trump’s first term.

    According to data from the Department of Agriculture, it stood at a surplus of approximately $16.3 billion at the end of 2016 and fell the next year, Trump’s first as president, to one of about $13.66 billion. The balance further decreased over the next two years, ultimately turning into a deficit of about $481 million. It returned to a surplus in 2020 at about $3.39 billion, which further increased in 2021 — the year Biden entered the White House. In 2022, it transitioned back to a deficit that grew to approximately $36.45 billion by the end of 2024. As of August, the latest data available, there was an agricultural trade deficit of about $36.3 billion.

    The yearslong trade war between the U.S. and China is partly to blame for the agricultural deficit, experts say. Trump fired the first shot in January 2018, with 30% tariffs on imported solar panels, which led to additional tariffs and import curbs from both sides that continued to a certain extent under Biden.

    The countries signed a Phase One trade deal in January 2020 through which China committed to buying an additional $200 billion of U.S. goods and services over the next two years. However, the Peterson Institute later found China had bought essentially none of the goods promised.

    What is the current situation?

    Trump has instituted even more tariffs on Chinese imports since returning to the White House. In response, China has retaliated with tariffs and import curbs on U.S. goods, including key farm products.

    The White House said in October, after Trump met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea, that Beijing had promised to buy at least 12 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans by the end of the calendar year, plus 25 million metric tons a year in each of the next three years. China has purchased more than 2.8 million metric tons of soybeans since Trump announced the agreement, according to AP reporting. That’s only about one quarter of what administration officials said China had promised, but Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said China is on track to meet its goal by the end of February, which is two months later than the White House originally promised.

    “China’s been refusing large U.S. purchases in favor of other trade partners,” said Hendrix. “This is a lamentable, but kind of predictable, consequence of the United States engaging in this trade war and weaponizing trade policy. Our trade partners are going to seek to diversify both for self-insurance — we’re talking about food, we’re talking about survival here — and to punish the U.S. for kind of changing the rules of the game so unilaterally.”

    But there are myriad other factors that have contributed to the current deficit, experts say. For example, high purchasing power enabled by a strong U.S. dollar and a desire by U.S. consumers to buy high-value goods that aren’t produced domestically. A stronger dollar also decreases demand for U.S. exports, as this makes it more difficult for other countries to buy those products.

    In addition, Brazil and Argentina have begun exporting soy, corn and beef, competing directly with U.S. exports and lowering prices for such goods. Major world events of which the U.S. government has little or indirect control, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate variability and the Russia-Ukraine war, have also contributed.

    “The tariffs can exacerbate the situation, but generally the fact that you may have a deficit or a surplus is really more dependent on global prices,” said Joseph Glauber, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who served as the Department of Agriculture’s chief economist from 2008 to 2014 under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

    Asked whether Trump blames solely Biden for the agricultural trade deficit, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said that “farmers suffered for years under Joe Biden,” but that Trump is committed to “helping our agriculture industry by negotiating new trade deals to open new export markets for our farmers and boosting the farm safety net for the first time in a decade.”

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

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  • Where Trump Sees Deals, Russia and China See a Chance to Disrupt U.S. Alliances

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    U.S. adversaries are using President Trump’s eagerness to strike deals as a chance to drive a wedge between the U.S. and its allies and undermine the Washington-led security order that has for years held them in check.

    In Europe, Russia is seeking to exploit Trump’s desire to halt the war in Ukraine and strike business deals with Moscow by shaping a peace plan that meets many of its strategic objectives, including winning chunks of Ukrainian territory and closing off any hope Kyiv had of joining NATO.

    Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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    Jason Douglas

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  • Exclusive | Trump, After Call With China’s Xi, Told Tokyo to Lower the Volume on Taiwan

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    Chinese leader Xi Jinping was angry, and President Trump was listening.

    Days after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi outraged China by suggesting a Chinese attack on Taiwan could mobilize a Tokyo military response, Xi spent half of an hourlong phone call with Trump, people briefed on the matter said, hammering home China’s historic claim to the democratic self-governing island as well as Washington and Beijing’s joint responsibility to manage the world order.

    Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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  • 11/24: The Takeout with Major Garrett

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    11/24: The Takeout with Major Garrett – CBS News









































    Watch CBS News



    Judge dismisses James Comey and Letitia James cases; President Trump holds call with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

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  • China’s Xi Calls Trump in Unusual Move to Discuss Ukraine, Taiwan

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    In an unusual diplomatic move, Chinese leader Xi Jinping initiated a phone call with President Trump on Monday, discussing Taiwan and Ukraine as Washington, Kyiv and Moscow try to hammer out a plan to end the war.

    China has provided crucial diplomatic and economic support to Russia since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Now as Trump pushes to make a decisive move to end the war, Beijing is seeking to play a more visible role.

    Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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  • Trump skips G20 summit—here’s who else won’t be there

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    President Donald Trump will not be attending a summit of leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies and nor will the leaders of other group members Russia, China, Argentina and Mexico.

    Why It Matters

    The Group of 20, or G20, was founded in 1999 after the Asian financial crisis with the intention of promoting global financial stability and underpinning development in a forum that brings together the developed industrial economies and their leading developing partners.

    Together, G20 members—19 countries plus the European Union and the African Union—represent about 85 percent of global gross domestic product, 75 percent of international trade, and two-thirds of the world’s population.

    Trump’s absence, and that of other leaders, risks undermining the credibility of the G20 during the gathering in South Africa, its first on the African continent.

    What To Know

    Trump said that no U.S. officials would attend the summit, saying white South Africans were “being killed and slaughtered” in line with his discredited assertion of a genocide in the country, which South Africa denies. 

    Muddying the waters on U.S. involvement in the summit on November 22-23 in Johannesburg, President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa said on Thursday that the United States had signaled it might change its mind and send a delegation. The White House later dismissed the claim as “fake news” but acknowledged that a U.S. representative would be present at the handover of the presidency.

    White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said David Greene, the embassy’s charge d’affaires, “is simply there to recognize that the United States will be the host of the G20.”

    “They are receiving that send-off at the end of the event. They are not there to participate in official talks, despite what the South African president is falsely claiming,” Leavitt said.

    In a post on X, Vincent Magwenya, the spokesperson for the South African presidency, said: “The President will not hand over to a Charge’ d’ Affaires.”

    The position of U.S. ambassador to Pretoria has remained vacant since January.

    Who Else Is Skipping the G20?

    China’s President Xi Jinping will also not be attending, with Beijing sending Premier Li Qiang instead, China’s Foreign Ministry said. It is not unusual for Li to represent China at such events.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin will also not be going, the Kremlin has said. Instead, he has assigned Maxim Oreshkin, deputy head of presidential administration, to head the Russian delegation.

    The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin in March 2023 on accusations of war crimes, specifically the unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia during the conflict in Ukraine. South Africa is a member of the ICC and would therefore be obliged to arrest Putin.

    The Russian leader has made several foreign visits since the warrant was issued, including to North Korea, Vietnam, China and the United States—for a summit with Trump in Alaska on August 15 this year—but none is a member of the ICC.

    Argentina’s President Javier Milei is also not going to South Africa but will send his foreign minister, Pablo Quirno. Milie is a close ally to Trump and shares his aversion to multilateralism and efforts to prevent climate change, which South Africa has said it wants to discuss.

    President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico will not be attending the G20 summit but will send a senior minister instead.

    What People Are Saying

    President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa said at a press conference on Thursday: “It cannot be that a country’s geographical location or income level or army determines who has a voice or who is spoken down to. And it basically means that should be no bullying of one nation by another nation. We are all equal.”

    White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a press briefing on Thursday: “I saw the South African President running his mouth a little bit against the United States and the president of the United States earlier today, and that language is not appreciated by the president or his team.”

    Christopher Vandome, a senior research fellow at Chatham House, wrote in a report released on Thursday:  “With the U.S. saying it will avoid the gathering and the global commitment to multilateralism being tested more broadly, the summit will not be a grand moment of solidarity or result in decisive action. Yet the issues championed by South Africa, including debt relief and climate finance, are important for the world.”

    Who Is in the G20?

    The G20’s membership includes: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States, plus the European Union and the African Union.

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  • Opinion | Trump Says Arms Are Going to Taiwan

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    One of the biggest questions in global affairs is whether President Trump is chasing a grand bargain with Beijing’s Xi Jinping—and at what cost to the United States. So it’s good news that the Administration is showing that America won’t be bullied from defending its Pacific interests, with an arms sale to our friends in Taiwan.

    The Defense Security Cooperation Agency has notified Congress of a $330 million potential arms sale for the island democracy. Items include spare parts for fighter jets and transport aircraft, as well as U.S. technical and logistics support. But more important than the details is that this marks the Administration’s first sale to Taiwan in Mr. Trump’s second term. Rumors had spread this year that Mr. Trump was withholding arms for Taiwan as he wooed Mr. Xi on a trade deal.

    Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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    The Editorial Board

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  • Trump Says Xi Will Help Fight Fentanyl. Will China Follow Through?

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    For years, the U.S. and China have been locked in a pattern on the deadly issue of fentanyl. The White House pressures Beijing to stop Chinese companies from exporting chemicals used to make the drug to Mexico. Beijing takes incremental steps in exchange for Washington dialing down economic pressure—only for China to drag its feet when relations deteriorate.

    President Trump, after a summit on Thursday with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, said tariffs he had imposed on China over its role in the fentanyl trade would be lowered to 10% from 20% because of Beijing’s “very strong action” in cracking down and Xi’s commitment to do more.

    Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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    Brian Spegele

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  • Trump says China’s Xi has assured him that he won’t take action on Taiwan during Republican’s term | Fortune

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    President Donald Trump says that Chinese President Xi Jinping has given him assurances that Beijing would take no action toward its long-stated goal of unifying Taiwan with mainland China while the Republican leader is in office.

    Trump said that the long-contentious issue of Taiwan did not come up in his talks with Xi on Thursday in South Korea that largely focused on U.S.-China trade tensions. But the U.S. leader expressed certainty that China would not take action on Taiwan, while he’s in office.

    “He has openly said, and his people have openly said at meetings, ‘We would never do anything while President Trump is president,’ because they know the consequences,” Trump said in an excerpt of an interview with the CBS’ program “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday.

    U.S. officials have long been concerned about the possibility of China using military force against Taiwan, the self-ruled island democracy claimed by Beijing as part of its territory.

    The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which has governed U.S. relations with the island, does not require the U.S. to step in militarily if China invades but makes it American policy to ensure Taiwan has the resources to defend itself and to prevent any unilateral change of status by Beijing.

    Asked if he would order U.S. forces to defend Taiwan if China attacked, Trump demurred. The United States, both Republican and Democratic administrations, have maintained a policy of “strategic ambiguity” on Taiwan — trying not to tip their hands on whether the U.S. would come to the island’s aid in such a scenario.

    “You’ll find out if it happens, and he understands the answer to that,” Trump said of Xi.

    Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, did not respond directly to a query about whether Trump has received any assurances from Xi or Chinese officials about Taiwan. He insisted in a statement that China “will never allow any person or force to separate Taiwan from China in any way.”

    “The Taiwan question is China’s internal affair, and it is the core of China’s core interests. How to resolve the Taiwan question is a matter for the Chinese people ourselves, and only the Chinese people can decide it,” the statement added.

    The White House also did not provide further details about when Xi or Chinese officials have conveyed to Trump that military action on Taiwan was off-the-table for the duration of the Republican’s presidency.

    The “60 Minutes” interview was taped on Friday at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. It marked Trump’s first appearance on the show since he settled a lawsuit this summer with CBS News over the newsmagazine’s interviewwith Kamala Harris.

    The rest of the interview is scheduled to air later Sunday.

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    Aamer Madhani, The Associated Press

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  • Deal between the US and China is undoing damage from a self-inflicted trade war

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    BUSAN, South Korea (AP) — Three-digit tariffs are off the table, but import duties on each other are higher than in January.

    Rare earth materials will flow more smoothly, but China has put in place an export permitting regime that it can tighten or loosen as needed.

    Port fees will go away, but only for one year.

    And Beijing is again buying U.S. soybeans after it had abruptly cut off American farmers.

    After months of posturing, arguing and threatening, U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have essentially turned back the clock. While the meeting between the two leaders was hailed by Trump as a “roaring success,” the agreement that came out of it may only serve to undo some of the damages Trump inflicted with his trade war upon his return to the White House.

    “It is hard to see what major gains the U.S. has made in the bilateral relationship relative to where things stood before Trump took office,” said Eswar Prasad, an economist at Cornell University.

    On the Senate floor, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday denounced the deal out of South Korea as leaving the U.S. as “no better off.”

    “If anything, things are worse: Prices have gone up and China has agreed to nothing of substance that will improve trade between our nations,” the Democrat senator said, adding that Trump “started a trade war, created a giant mess for businesses, consumers, and soybean farmers, and then he celebrates for trying to clean up the very mess he created in the first place.”

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    Nevertheless, the deal has injected a degree of stability, giving the world’s two largest economies — as well as the rest of the world — time and room to readjust.

    Washington and Beijing still need to finalize their agreements, a process that always has the potential for fresh disputes. But for now, Xi appears interested in moving past the latest tensions.

    In an official statement, Xi referred to “recent twists and turns” that “offered some lessons for both sides.” He said they should be “focusing on the benefits of cooperation rather than falling into a vicious cycle of mutual retaliation.”

    Both sides reduce tariffs, resume soybean sales to China

    Trump fired the first shot in the trade war in February when he imposed an additional 10% tariff on Chinese goods over the allegation that Beijing failed to stem the flow of chemicals used to make fentanyl. That soared to as much as 145% after China retaliated, but Trump walked it back following market meltdowns.

    The two sides in May slashed their massive tariffs to 10% on each other, while Washington retained the 20% fentanyl-related tariff, and China its retaliatory tariffs of 10% or 15% on U.S. farm goods.

    Now, Trump said he has removed one 10% fentanyl tariff in exchange for Beijing’s cooperation in fighting the illicit drug.

    U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said China would also withdraw the retaliatory tariffs on U.S. agricultural products. A spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said Beijing would “adjust accordingly” its countermeasures without giving details.

    In addition, China has agreed to buy 12 million metric tons of U.S. beans through January, and will buy at least 25 million metric tons annually for next three years, Rollins said on Thursday.

    That compares to China buying 17 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans in the first eight months of this year but importing zero in September. In 2024, China bought 22 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans, according to state media.

    Although China did not confirm the details of the latest soybean deal, the spokesperson for the Chinese commerce ministry said the two sides have reached “consensus” to expand agricultural trade.

    One-year truce on export controls and port fees

    In April, China used its monopoly power in the processing of critical minerals to institute a permitting requirement for the export of several rare earth elements. On October 9, Beijing expanded the export rules, apparently in response to the U.S. decision to extend export controls to businesses affiliated with already-blacklisted foreign companies.

    Furious, Trump threatened to impose a new 100% tariff on China, but the two sides managed to cool down in time for Trump to meet Xi in South Korea.

    Beijing on Thursday said it would pause for a year the rare earth export rules from October to “conduct research to refine specific plans,” while the U.S. will suspend its affiliate rule for one year.

    The delay by Beijing “provides just enough time for the United States to accelerate investment in capabilities and innovation for rare earths and permanent magnets,” said Wade Senti, president of the U.S. permanent magnet company AML. “This needs to be on warp speed and at a scale never seen before since the COVID-19 response,” he said.

    Another fresh thorn was the U.S. introduction of port fees in October targeting China-linked vessels, as part of a plan to restore America’s shipbuilding capabilitie s. Beijing answered with countermeasures against the U.S.

    The port fees on each other are not removed but will be suspended for one year, the Chinese commerce ministry said.

    The future is still uncertain

    Whether Trump accepts a return to the status quo or pushes to address fundamental issues that have persisted for years between the U.S. and China remains unclear. Nothing about Thursday’s meeting — the first between Trump and Xi in six years — affects Chinese manufacturing dominance that Trump has blamed for the loss of American blue collar jobs.

    Sean Stein, president of the U.S.-China Business Council, called the latest developments “very encouraging” and added: “We hope that future negotiations will address long-standing market access barriers, help level the playing field for U.S. companies, and bring long-term predictability to the bilateral trade relationship.”

    There are more opportunities on the horizon to keep working on these challenges. Trump said he will go to China in April and Xi will visit the U.S. after that.

    If Trump isn’t successful, this period could be remembered for a lot of sound and fury but no change in the basic trajectory of China’s ascendant economy.

    “Generally, Trump grows impatient with anything beyond the immediate, and it is the Chinese that play for longer term advantage,” said Kurt Campbell, a former deputy secretary of state in the Biden administration and now chairman of The Asia Group.

    ___

    Tang and Wiseman reported from Washington. AP writer Josh Funk in Omaha, Neb., contributed to the report

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  • Canadian PM Carney Says He Apologized to Trump Over Antitariff Ad

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    Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he apologized to President Trump over an antitariff television ad that had angered Trump and sent the two countries’ trade talks into a tailspin.

    Carney made the apology earlier this week during a dinner in South Korea for Asia-Pacific leaders, he told reporters Saturday at a news conference. Trump had been offended by the advertisement, Carney said, which was sponsored by the Ontario government and included audio of former President Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs.

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