The Decibel - Trump in China: Iran war, Taiwan and trade tensions

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to China to meet President Xi Jinping this week is full of jeopardy. From tense talks over trade and tariffs, the role of each superpower in the war in Iran, and the future of Taiwan – each leader has been full of praise, while also talking past each other on the thorniest issues. Will any substantial deals get done? And where does this leave the U.S.-China relationship? James Griffiths, The Globe’s Asia correspondent joins the show to discuss the recent history and tensions between the U.S. and China. Later, Steven Chase, The Globe’s senior parliamentary reporter details the progress made so far and how it can impact Canada’s standing with the two countries. Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

U.S. President Donald Trump is in China right now. It's the first time a sitting president has been there in nearly a decade. You and I have known each other now for a long time. In fact, the longest relationship of our two countries that any president and president has had. And that's to me an honor. He's meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping, and China pulled out all the stops. There was a tour of the famous 15th century temple of half. a state banquet, and a meeting at Beijing's Great Hall of the People, which is where the Chinese government is based.

And the two sides have been sitting down to discuss big issues, like trade, tariffs, the war in Iran, and Taiwan. Today we've got two guests on the show. The Globe's Asia correspondent James Griffiths is here to set up what the relationship has been like between these superpowers and where they stand on these big issues. Then we speak with the Globe's senior parliamentary reporter Stephen Chase about what came of the first bilateral meeting and what implications this might have for Canada. I'm Cheryl Sutherland and this is the decibel from the Globe and Mail. Hi James, great to have you back on. Thanks for having me. So Trump and she are meeting for these bilateral talks this week.

What is the relationship like between the two of them? It's hard to tell because obviously Trump took. talks this relationship up. He often talks about Xi as a friend and I think maybe clearly admires him and he always seems to have a soft spot for strong men and she is definitely one of those. You know, whether there's actual kind of closeness there, you know, for two men that have met a handful of times over the last few years and only speak through translators, I think that's unclear. But, you know, there is definitely kind of admiration from Trump and, you know, China obviously values, you know, a stable U.S. relationship incredibly highly and, you know,

it also seems to kind of know, you know, what Trump wants and how to appeal to him, which shows a kind of understanding of him, I think. Okay. Let's talk more broadly about the relationship between the two countries beyond the leaders themselves, because things have been pretty tense, right? Can you remind us why that is? So almost immediately upon returning to office, last year, Trump launched this sweeping trade war against China, imposing. tariffs across almost all Chinese goods. And then when China responded in kind, he escalated that and China escalated. And we went through this prolonged session of tip-for-tat tariffs, which reached at one point US tariffs was something like 145%. Chinese tariffs were also close

to 100%. And that would essentially have cut off trade between the world's two largest economies. And that would have been devastating for both them, but also devastating for the global market. And, you know, that eventually they kind of both walked down from that. There was a meeting in South Korea late in the year last year where they agreed to a truce and things are kind of, I guess kind of stuck in that truce ever since. You know, we're now six months or more than six months away from it and there hasn't been too much progress since, which is one of the reasons China particularly was keen to have this meeting, even though now it's unclear just what the outcomes of that meeting might be. So you say that they're in a trade truce. How stable

is that? Not particularly stable, both because a proper agreement has not been hashed out and also because of the nature of how Donald Trump governs, you know, even if an agreement is reached or a truce is reached, you don't always know if suddenly some new tariffs might be imposed via a truth social post. We already saw some threats around the war in Iran, where Trump was frustrated that China wasn't doing more with the straits of poor moves, that he did seem to threaten at one point he might introduce some tariffs, China would have inevitably have responded in kind, and then things would have unraveled very quickly. So it's pretty delicate situation at the moment, and they will be hoping to kind of put

some guardrails around that in Beijing this week. Can you elaborate? What are we talking about when you say guardrails? So there is talk of a board of trade, which honestly in principle seems to be the same as this thing that existed during the Biden administration called the U.S. China Joint commission on commerce and trade. And that's basically just a, you know, a mechanism that will exist for Chinese and U.S. officials to talk to each other to negotiate the trade relationship, to talk about potential tariffs that they have or other restrictions to market access and things

like that. And so that things are done at a more stable governmental level than done at the moment, which often has been via truth social posts. James, let's talk about Taiwan, because this is always a big issue for foreign leaders that meeting with Chinese leaders. And it's a topic that President Xi wants to talk about, but President Trump likely doesn't. Why is that? Taiwan has always been a sensitive issue in U.S. China relations. The U.S. acknowledges China's territorial claims to Taiwan while obviously not supporting them. And at the same time, it has certain commitments and promises to defend Taiwan against potential Chinese invasion. And so that end often does arm sales to Taiwan, including a huge arm sale earlier this

year. What has Trump's position on Taiwan been? Like a lot of Donald Trump's positions, it's going to say occasionally be hard to pass and contradictory. He has spoken out in favor of Taiwan at times. Other times he has criticized Taiwan for supposedly mooching off the US, similar criticisms that we've seen of other US friends and allies around the world. He's suggested that the US might not step in, were there to be an invasion and talked about the fact that, you know, China is a lot a lot more geographically close to Taiwan than the US is. So it's hard to tell. And at the same time, I think even when he does say things that are, you know, what maybe closer to language that China would like to see, you know, that's not necessarily consistent either. And there's no guarantee that

he won't reverse that later or kind of say something that could contradictory the following week. So it's, you know, it's very difficult to tell what his actual position is. Okay. So Taiwan is a big issue on the China side. And the war in Iran is, of course, a big issue on the U.S. side. What's China's position on the war? China has consistently opposed this war. China is generally opposed to kind of any foreign interventions and has long been a strong critic of U.S. adventurism in the Middle East and elsewhere. At the same time, they've not really done that much, say, to support Iran, which is a long-term ally of China's. You know, they've not really provided Iran military support or you know, and only really limited economic support,

in part because they have very strong ties with all the other countries in the Middle East who have kind of been dragged in. You know, they've pushed Iran to the table, you know, supporting Pakistan's mediation efforts. They've encouraged both sides of talk. They've encouraged, you know, a ceasefire, you know, opening the straight for Hormuz.

But they've mainly been on the sidelines of this conflict to an extent that sometimes the US has criticized them and kind of has suggested that they could be doing more, which I think sometimes, I think overstates the influence that Beijing maybe has over Iran, that obviously they are a very important trading partner for Tehran, but whether they're an important enough trading partner that they could get the Iranians to make concessions that they wouldn't otherwise, I think, has not really been shown. And certainly China does not seem to think that it needs to step in

and try and fix this for the US. Yeah. And we actually had you on the show a few weeks ago to talk about how China is faring in the war. And it's actually doing pretty well compared to, to other Asian countries because it's been building up energy stockpiles, for example. Do you think that's part of the reason as to why Xi and China might be sitting on the sidelines here? It's hard to tell at the top of Chinese politics because it's such a black box around Xi Jinping. But what we can say is looking at how Chinese analysts and Chinese kind of foreign affairs commentators have been discussing this and Chinese state media, that this is seen as kind of a peripheral issue to the U.S.-China relationship. China disapproves with the war. They'd rather it hadn't happened. It's obviously, it's definitely

colored how China views the US and views the US under Donald Trump. But at the same time, there is a feeling of you broke it, you fix it, and this is a side issue to the much more important bilateral relationship, and that's what we should be focused on. To the extent that I think there's been some reporting out of the US that they're frustrated, that China won't talk about Iran much, but China kind of feels that this is not really China's problem and why are you talking to us about this, you know, go, go fix it yourselves. Okay, I want to bring it to Canada here for a moment, James, because earlier this year, Carney did visit Mr. Xi in Beijing, and the two countries struck some deals. One of the headlines was that Canada will allow some electric

vehicles from China into the Canadian market. How could these deals be affected, if at all, by this meeting between Xi and Trump? I think Ottawa will be watching very closely to see if basically Trump strikes the same kind of deals because the risk of Canada in this is that Trump after vociferously criticizing Mark Carney for making these deals will potentially go to Beijing and do exactly the same. You know, allow Chinese EV manufacturers

to come and build their cars in the US or, you know, open up the US market to Chinese products and, you know, get concessions on US exports to China or around a similar area. The problem there for Canada is it will create competition for Canadian exports and reduce, you know, how kind of exclusive access they have to the Chinese market at the moment. And if EV manufacturers come to the US to build cars, that will be less interest for them to come to Canada. It may kind of, you know, undercut that

deal that Mr. Carney made earlier this year. Yeah, that makes sense, especially because Canada's market is way smaller than the US. So it does make sense that this would impact perhaps Canada's deals. Absolutely. And on the kind of diplomatic side as well, I spoke to an analyst, a US analyst, about kind of whether, you know, one upside for Canada, even from that, might be that, you know, at least the US will give up on, or ease up on criticism of Canada for moving closer to China, given it will be doing the same thing. But this analyst, Jonathan Zinn, who's a former CIA analyst focused on China, you know, he kind of was skeptical about that because he said that, you know, Trump is very comfortable in

thinking of terms of, you know, this is for me, not for thee, and that it's fine for the US to deal with China, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's fine for U.S. allies to deal with China. So Canada might end up actually getting, you know, the raw end of both sticks here that it may find its own competitiveness undercut while at the same time still be criticized and pushed around by the U.S. on how it deals with China. James, we'll leave it there. Thank you so much.

Thanks for having me. That was James Griffin. the Globe's Asia correspondent. Coming up after the break, Stephen Chase, senior parliamentary reporter for the globe, joins us to talk about what's come out of the meeting so far

and how it might affect Canada. We'll be right back. I'm Robin Doolittle, and I'm a reporter and the deputy head of investigations at the Globe and Mail. And we need your help. Every year, seniors in Canada

are defrauded out of millions of dollars. And we want to look into this. We're starting an investigative project that's going to examine the scams that target the elderly. If you or a loved one has been impacted by a grandparent scam or a fraud like this, the Globe and Mail would like to speak with you. You can reach us at Elder Fraud at GlobenMail.com. That's Elder Fraud at Globe and Mail.com. Hi, Steve. How are you?

I'm good. How are you doing? Great. So we're going to be talking about this recent meeting between President Xi and President Trump. They finally did meet in Beijing on Wednesday night, our time, for this first meeting. How would you describe what we learn from that meeting? Would you say that this was a reset of relations between the two countries? Like, how would you describe it? We're talking mid-game here.

The visit is still going to proceed for another day. So we're sort of in the middle of the visit. There's no concrete trade deals announced yet. There's no visible movement on semiconductors or export controls from the U.S. or rare earths and no public progress on Iran beyond a statement that the Strait of Hormuz, that valuable vital waterway should be opened. The final working lunch on Friday, however, Friday, China time, could still produce announcements. I mean, what do you make of the fact that what we learned from this meeting so far was a lot of words and, Not a lot of tangibles. Is that surprising?

My experience that in over until it's over. So with the Chinese, you're always negotiating up to the last minute, up to the end of the event, of the end of the visit. So I've been to China three times with prime ministers, Canadian prime ministers. Obviously, that's not the same caliber as this. But you're always negotiating right until the very end. So I assume if there are any deliverables, they will come out after the working lunch on Friday. I mean, by the time this air is that we might know something on that, but we will Talk about what we know so far, which has been kind of interesting.

So from this meeting that Trump and Xi had, this first meeting, what do we learn about the issue of Taiwan? Because this is a big deal, right? What happened there? China has made it clear that Taiwan is at the forefront of U.S.-China relations. Taiwan only exists as a self-governing island right now thanks to the support of the U.S., both military sales and sort of the implicit idea that they would. come to its aid if China ever tried to invade it. Xi has made it increasingly clear over the last few years that he wants the U.S. to back off. The U.S. has not backed off.

Biden, the former president, actually talked several times about coming to Taiwan's aid if it were ever attacked. When it comes to Mr. Trump, it's been a lot more unclear what his policy is, but Mr. Xi's goal has been at this meeting to get him to soften his stand on Taiwan. Yeah, yeah. Can you tell me a bit more about that? Like, what did she say about Taiwan to Trump? What did we learn there? It was a sharp warning in the bilateral meeting. Now, the actual statement that emerged contained nothing on this. But what he was recorded as saying is that the Taiwan question is the most important issue in U.S. China relations. If mishandled, the two nations could collide or even come into conflict, pushing the entire China-U.S. relationship into a highly

perilous situation. So that's diplomacy speak for back off. And because Mr. Trump has been of two minds on Taiwan, he's suggested it's mooching off the U.S. He suggested it should buy more weapons. The Chinese leadership thinks they have an opportunity to get him to soften his stand. Now, at the joint press availability, where they were basically standing in front of the cameras, Mr. Trump is inclined to respond when a reporter asked him about Taiwan. Late place. Incredible. China is beautiful.

So far, Mr. Trump is not ready to give us his perspective on the matter and give any indication of whether he's prepared to soften longstanding U.S. support for Taiwan. Okay. The key being so far, it is still possible that Trump does say something on Taiwan. What does it mean that Trump hasn't said anything on it, at least at this first meeting? It means he's keeping his options open until he sees what Mr. Shea offers him. As we said earlier, it ain't over until it's over. So he's not going to make any concessions until they've concluded negotiations on everything they're talking about.

On the threats from China on the U.S. when it comes to Taiwan, China made a similar threat to Canada at the beginning of May. Is that right? The envoy for China and Canada told the Globe and Mail told me that our new strategic partnership that was signed by Mr. Kearney back in January could be imperiled if Canada continues to send warships through the Taiwan Strait or continues to allow parliamentarians, MPs and senators, to visit Taiwan and meet with the government. And that was a clear attempt to sort of weaponize. this new relationship.

Obviously, Mr. Kearney and Canada is vulnerable right now. We're looking for new friends. We're looking for new export markets because of the U.S. and because of the mercurial and protectionist Trump administration. So China recognizes that we're in a weakened situation and is trying to press its advantage there. We send warships through the Taiwan straight at the rate of two, sometimes three a year.

Usually they're just transiting between work they're doing, with a UN to enforce UN sanctions against North Korea, they're transiting between there and somewhere in South Asia. And they use it because it's not only convenient, but because we want to keep it international waters, the waterway between China and Taiwan. Of course, China considers it effectively inland sea and wants us to ask permission before we go in there. At the same time, parliamentarians have been visiting Taiwan for 50 years. and they often meet the president and vice president and other assorted dignitaries. And this, of course, is an affront to China.

Beijing wants to isolate Taiwan. It wants to diplomatically isolate it and force the world to stay away from it as it continues to coax or pressure or menace Taiwan into joining China. So what you're describing here and what we are learning from this meeting between Trump and Xi is that we're seeing the same type of strategy here from China, both with the U.S. in Canada when it comes to Taiwan? They're certainly making this a cornerstone of their relationship and suggesting that this will imperil their relationship if we don't tow the line. I want to talk about the war in Iran.

This is obviously another big thing that's hanging over this meeting. We know the U.S. wants China to get more involved in helping to end the war. Were there any developments from this first meeting between Xi and Trump? Not significant developments. I mean, the two sides agreed the strait must remain open to the free flow of energy and that no tolls should be charged for transit. Xi opposed the, quote, militarization of the waterway.

Both agreed that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. And China also has expressed interest in buying more U.S. oil to reduce its dependence on Middle Eastern crude. So opening signs of development there, but of course, we'll wait to see what comes after the trip is over. Obviously, trade and business are important issues to the two countries as well. Is there anything new we've learned on that front? I think that they did agree that they would like to develop a constructive China-U.S. relationship of strategic stability, which is the kind of language Beijing likes to deploy around

these things. But this is the idea is they're trying to build a framework to go forward, a more stable relationship and less fractious. Mr. Trump, of course, in the one hand, has many, anti-China or China hawks in his administration. But he also loves a deal. He also loves to come home with something that looks like a deal and makes him look like a great dealmaker. So two possibly contradictory themes there. Let's bring it back to Canada for a moment here, Steve, because as we talked about with James,

Prime Minister Mark Carney traveled to China back in January in an effort to diversify away from the U.S. Is there anything that we've learned so far from this trip with Trump and Xi? that could impact Canada and the deals they struck with China? Not at the moment. Mr. Trump has sort of flip-flopped on Canada's dealings with China. Initially, he welcomed a deal between Canada and China to allow Chinese EVs into this country, at least 50,000 for the first year.

And then he changed his tone after criticism in the sort of MAGA Republican sphere and community. And Mr. Trump's tune changed, and he became a critic of our EV deal with China, suggesting that it would allow Canada become some kind of drop-off port for Chinese goods to enter the states. He suggested that by partnering with China on EVs and agriculture that we were systematically destroying ourselves. And there was even talk of betrayal that somehow we were siding with the Chinese.

And of course, many people push back on that by noting Mr. Trump himself as a history of making trade deals with China, including during his first term, and it wasn't out of the realm that maybe one day he would strike his own deal to bring Chinese EVs into the United States. There is no sign of that happening, though. So any suggestion that Mr. Trump would prove to be hypocritical by cutting a similar deal to us on EVs that has not materialized.

Why is this trip important in a Canadian context? Like, what should we be watching in particular here? from Canada. We're trying to develop new non-U.S. relationships, including China. And we have a pretty transactional, but a deepening relationship with China. And we have to be careful that it doesn't run afoul of the mercurial, Mr. Trump and his administration, or that could affect our discussions on renewing the USMCA, the Kuzma deal between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. We're currently entering negotiations on that. And so we can't be too offside the Americans when it comes to. to what we're doing with China.

For fear, of course, that the China Hawks administration could, this could somehow sink the bilateral talks of renewal and leave us without trade access to the U.S. So the question would be is, has Mr. Trump done anything during this trip that would seem to narrow our own margin of maneuver or to widen our margin of maneuver? And that's something which so far we don't have a lot of visibility on.

There has been a lot of fanfare leading up to this trip. I know that we're in the middle of this trip so far, but does it feel like a success so far? Well, no one's flying home angry yet, and no one's, Mr. Trump isn't tasering somebody with a new truth social post. So I guess the bottom line is,

is he hasn't left and a huff and attacked Mr. Xi. So to the extent that the world depends on a stable relationship between China and the U.S., things are going okay so far. Steve, thank you so much. You're welcome. That was Stephen Chase, the Globe's senior parliamentary reporter. That's it for today.

I'm Cheryl Sutherland. Cynthia Jimenez is our associate producer and intern. Aja Sauter produced this episode. Our producers are Madeline White, Rachel Levy McLaughlin and Mahal Stein. Our editor is David Crosby. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pichenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening.