The other day, speaking of the pending Ukraine deal, Sen. Mitch McConnell said that Putin has been playing Trump for a fool. The same might be said of that other Trump bestie, Xi Jinping. It’s curious that Trump is so kind to dictators who want nothing good for the U.S., while he keeps trashing America’s long-standing friends.
The latest case of Xi playing Trump is the surprise Monday phone call between Trump and the Chinese leader, ostensibly to discuss future diplomacy. The Chinese readout of the call emphasized the importance of U.S. respect for Chinese claims on Taiwan.
The implication of the language was that just as the U.S. consents to Russia’s designs on Ukraine, China gets Taiwan. With Trump having no patience for being briefed on the nuances of these ploys, all this went right over his head.
The undermining of U.S. defense of Taiwan only builds on Trump’s October 30 meeting with Xi in South Korea, where Xi got just about everything he wanted while Trump gave away the store. Trump’s concessions included tariff cuts, a one-year suspension of trade enforcement actions designed to rebuild the U.S. shipbuilding sector, and a suspension of microchip export controls.
In return, China agreed to only a one-year pause in its embargo of rare earth exports, and vague promises to buy more soybeans and crack down on fentanyl traffic. Canada now has higher punitive tariffs, supposedly as retribution for virtually non-existent fentanyl smuggling, than China has.
China’s soybean purchases were muted until the call, after which a purchase order of at least 10 cargoes materialized. The amounts are still are lower than the promised 12 million tons. In addition, China is working on a system to block rare earth magnets from the U.S. military.
Trump’s vaunted use of tariffs to make America great again has been used in such an impulsive and scattershot way that they are not part of any strategic plan. As Lori Wallach of Rethink Trade puts it, Trump likes to use tariffs because he thinks of himself as Zeus hurling thunderbolts.
On Monday, Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, at a high-level meeting in Brussels, hurled a quickie thunderbolt at our friends in the EU. He told the Europeans that there would be no relief from Trump’s 50 percent tariffs on European steel and aluminum exports until Europe repealed its pro-consumer privacy rules on tech platforms. “The idea is if they take the foot off this regulatory framework and make it more inviting for our companies, they can get the benefit of hundreds of billions, possibly $1 trillion of investment,” Lutnick said.
Henna Virkkunen, the European Commission’s tech chief, quickly pushed back, saying that Europe’s digital rules are not part of the EU-U.S. trade talks and will be “strongly” enforced. “I have been very clear since the very beginning: our digital legislation is not up for negotiation,” she said.
The Trump administration, instead of protecting the consumer interest of not being spied on by digital surveillance capitalism, is more concerned to protect digital monopolies. So Europe gets punished, while China and Russia get a free ride.
Meanwhile, back on the Ukraine front, the latest outrage is a leaked transcript in which Trump’s lead negotiator, Steve Witkoff, coached the Russians on how to play Trump for a fool. Republicans have been appalled. “These ridiculous side shows and secret meetings need to stop,” Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) said on X. Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) said that Witkoff “acts like he’s on Russia’s payroll.” But it’s Trump who acts like he’s on Putin’s payroll.
Putin and Xi have one other thing in common, besides being dictators and playing Trump for the fool that he is. Both think strategically and act accordingly. Trump acts ignorantly and impulsively. To the extent that he thinks strategically all, Trump’s strategy is all about what grift he can grab for himself and his family from foreign policy deals. Selling out his country and its allies is secondary.