China: The Art of Xi's Deal

[Passages]

Today on TAP: China is playing a serious long game; Trump is playing with made-for-TV moments. The winner: Xi.

by Robert Kuttner
October 31, 2025


In classic form, Trump concluded his hollow trade deal with Xi Jinping Thursday, and then changed the subject and the headlines. With no clear plan or rationale, he announced that the U.S. could resume nuclear testing. And, of course, the Asia trip itself was planned as a diversion from the government shutdown. Trump’s method is to drive us to distraction.

A close examination of the agreement with Xi suggests that Trump got rolled; or more precisely, he rolled himself. Coherence and preparation matters. Xi and his advisers had plenty of it. Trump had mainly his own impulsivity.

The latest sequence began when China denied the U.S. access to rare earth minerals whose production China dominates, as a response to earlier U.S. tariff increases. Then in early October, Trump raised tariffs on China’s exports to 100 percent. Both of these were rolled back in the deal.

SNIP*To the extent that the deal provides “relief,” it’s relief from the pain Trump imposed on the economy himself. But to anyone serious about the China challenge, these issues are a sideshow. The larger issues of China’s growing dominance of a whole range of advanced technologies via predatory mercantilist industrial policies were untouched in these negotiations.
https://prospect.org/2025/10/31/china-art-of-xis-deal/

[Irish_Dem]

1. Soon China will be the sole global superpower.

Thanks to Trump.

[Shipwack]

2. :(.... nt