China backed Trump’s position that the Strait of Hormuz should be unblocked and that no one should collect any tolls. As soon as Trump played his high-stakes cards for Chinese AI right under Xi’s nose, Xi was ready to trade his vassal,the Iranian military junta, for these “glass beads”
What card did Trump play that would make Xi willing to sacrifice his allies? Are you talking about Trump allowing Nvidia to export H200 chip to Chinese partner? That is old and outdated information, and the Chinese side has stated that they no longer intend to buy them. Instead, they are striving to create domestically produced semiconductor chip.
To put it bluntly, Trump gained almost nothing from this trip
As for China’s statement about the Strait of Hormuz. If you pay close attention, you will notice that every head of state makes a similar statement when asked, because that is how political diplomacy work. I think you already know this, right?
I’ve written before about my view of Trump and my take on his actions. Trump isn’t a geopolitical strategist. He’s an ordinary businessman and a manipulator-one with a very specific style. To understand his behavior, you need to read about his history, his "successes", and how he achieved them. In most cases, this involved leveraging his father’s connections, manipulation, and pressure--but only where he had those connections to fall back on. And now he’s trying to apply that same behavior to geopolitics, but it doesn’t work that way here.
Plus, he believes that the U.S. isn’t an independent country whose people allowed him to lead the U.S. for a while, but rather HIS PERSONAL BUSINESS!
And on the subject of playing his cards. Trump very often likes to shout, "You have no cards", as I’m sure everyone remembers. Now he’s come to China with exactly zero cards in his hand
Trump "dumped" Taiwan, gently hinting that now it’s Taiwan’s own problem and they’ll have to figure it out themselves, but "move your chip manufacturing to us". For China-or more precisely, for Xi Jinping-"bringing Taiwan back to China" is very important. There are both technological and propaganda nuances at play here. What China will do in response-I think we’ll find out soon.
In theory, it should be something equally critical for the U.S.; in my view, that is Iran. But if Trump traded Taiwan for some insignificant "gifts" from Xi, it would be a complete failure of U.S. foreign policy, a loss of status as a major geopolitical player, and the decline of the U.S...
