The Duran Podcast - China-US trade talks. Trump aims to move China away from Russia

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

China-US trade talks. Trump aims to move China away from Russia

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the trade talks between the United States and China. Trump will be meeting with Xi very soon. And it looks like we have some sort of a framework agreed on between the United States and China. At least, this is according to Besant. He has a bit of a more positive spin on things. China seems to be more cautious, but Besant talked about soybeans. China purchasing soybeans. And he also talked about some sort of an extension on the rare earths and the export controls that are being placed by China on rare earths. So he mentioned that

as well. It seems to me as if we've gone eight, nine months of this trade tariff war between the United States and China just kind of end up back at the beginning, it seems right? I mean, That's how it looks to me. So we kind of got in a circle and we're right back to where things started on day one of Trump's administration. I think this is exactly, I think this is exactly right. I think what's happening is this. I mean, I think that when Trump came in, he wanted again to readjust the whole balance of trade decisively in favor of the United States. He believed the United States had an enormous advantage over China because China needed the. American market. He's made various decisions about tariffs, as we know. He wants at one point raised tariffs against China to, I think it was 147%. He's discovered that the Chinese play a very tough game. And the Chinese have made it quite obvious that they've got leverage over the United States. That goes well beyond the leverage that the leverage that

that the United States has over them. And over the last couple of weeks, after there was a sort of pause in the economic war, there was an agreement between Besson and the Chinese official whose first name is her in Madrid in September, the United States, as we discussed in a recent program, where I'd not say the United States, the Trump administration engaged in salami slicing, and and made all kinds of threats of imposing 100% tariffs on China if the Chinese continue to import Russian oil. So the Chinese started to take countermeasures. They started to take steps with respect to rare earths. There's been an American climb down in effect. There's

been negotiations. It looks as to me more to, and I have to say this, as if we're going to get not a fully decided trade agreement, but basically a further extension of the truce that was agreed in Madrid. Bear in mind that when the truce was agreed in Madrid, the Chinese, and I mean, I read their media, were anticipating that negotiations on a full-scale trade agreement would begin right away, and they didn't. So we're waging. going to get something very like Madrid, perhaps with a few things, added on. But the underlying story is that China is reorienting increasingly its trade away from the United States. I think it's gradually understanding that the future no longer lies in developing the American

market. The American market is going to be closed to China at some point within the next couple of years. Chinese commentary about the latest trade talks is much, much cooler than, you know, the very optimistic spin that Besson and the Americans are trying to put on the discussions that are taking place. But what the Chinese want, I think, is an orderly divorce, we discussed this many times, so that they have more time to reorient and rebalance their trade. And I think that's what the Chinese are getting. The Chinese want an orderly divorce. I agree with you on that one. But there's some people in the Trump White House that don't want an orderly divorce. They want the capitulation from China,

even though it would benefit them for an orderly divorce. And I imagine that would be the the America first goal in all of this. I mean, if you were operating from an America first standpoint, then you would say, yeah, an orderly divorce. That benefits us. That works for you guys as well. Let's hammer this thing out. But it seems like there's a group of people in the Trump administration where saying, no, we don't only want an orderly divorce. We want a Chinese capitulation. We want to embarrass the Chinese. We want them to submit to us. I mean, I mean, why are they thinking in these terms? You're absolutely right. This has been the problem. This is what has created all the tensions between the United States and China throughout this year and also

during the Biden period, by the way, and even before that, yes, there are economic arguments in the United States. I'm not going to say that they're correct or that they're incorrect, but there is a current of economic thought, which says that as part of the U.S.'s long-term project, which is de-industrialization, it needs to find some means to stop these massive, unending flow of cheap goods into the United States from China. So they want to do that. They want to have a protectionist economic policy. Some of these people also see China as a geopolitical rival, and they say with some logic, if it is a geopolitical rival, you shouldn't depend on it in the way that the United States currently does, not just for rare earth, but for all sorts of other technologies and inputs as well.

Now, that is a case for an orderly divorce. You don't want to crash your entire defence industry. You don't want to crash your entire car industry by pulling the plug on trade with China immediately. You need five, ten years, perhaps longer, to work it all out and to get to that point. when the United States is self-sufficient again. The trouble is that there is another group of people in the United States who say China is weak, its economy is in crisis, the situation of the property market has never been resolved, there is disinflation with China, China is an adversary of the United States,

It's pursuing all kinds of aggressive policies against the United States. It's planning to attack Taiwan in 27. And what we need to do, therefore, is to put the Chinese in their place now. Because if we don't, then in a few years' time, they will be upcoming after us. And we can do it now because their economy, their underlying economy, is so weak. And unfortunately, the president, Donald Trump, often listens to these people. Of course he does. And the result is that we have this constant ebb and flow, these decisions that we saw

in April, the salami slicing we've seen over the last couple of weeks, then people who have a better understanding of the situation like Besson and others have to scramble and try to put things back together again. We have on and off this talk about, you know, summit meeting with Xi Jinping is on, then it's not, then it's on again, that it's off. Now we apparently are finally going to get a summit meeting. But again, and it's so like the situation with Russia in some ways, though obviously with its differences. The administration, You could see that potentially there is a rational outcome to this, but it is unable to stay the course. Even if they meet with Xi Jinping, well, Trump will meet the Xi Jinping in a couple of days.

There will be some kind of an agreement, but there is no reason to think that that agreement is going to stick for very long. We will start to see before long more articles starting to appear in the media that China is taking advantage in some ways, the pressure will increase. You get all of the push and pull continuing all the time. And you know, you get, I mean, there's been an article, there's been a big report in Rand, RAND Corporation, saying that, you know, the United States needs to back off. China really isn't quite as terrible and dangerous as people as saying, we need to come to

some kind of terms with China. China is stronger than some people think. And some, a lot of people have been saying, well, this proves that American policy towards China is now going to become much more accommodating. And I think it probably will for a time. But before long, we're going to see the other faction. They're going to get their report out in Rand, which is going to tell a completely different story. I've seen this happened with Russia? You get anti-very-Russian reports in Rand. You know, we must create problems on all their periphery. We must choke them and strangle them. Then you get other reports by people like Samuel Charrup who say, look, this isn't going to work. We can find a way. We can

deal with the Russians. They're not as dangerous as we think. It's going to be exactly the same with China all over again. The United States struggles to stick to a single coherent policy. And this particular president appears to find it impossible. Yeah, he's flipping and flopping a whole lot. That's for sure. He's the king of flip-flops. But Besson and Lutnik are also pretty big China hawks. At least that's how it seems. Yeah. So those guys seem pretty hawkish on China as well. Another part of the of the dynamic between this summit with Trump and Xi is that Trump is going to try to convince Xi to ditch Russia, right, to stop buying Russian energy and to put pressure on Russia so that

it agrees to a ceasefire, right? A capitulation, basically to pull China away from Russia, which would then isolate China. and would lead to some sort of a Putin capitulation to Trump's terms. Two questions on that. Why is Trump going to bring this up, right? Why would you do this? You're going to meet with Xi Jinping to talk about trade and tariffs and all of these things. Why are you going to pester him about Russia?

And the other question is, will this work? Well, it won't work. And this has been tried many, many times. Biden has tried it. Other U.S. officials have tried it. The Europeans have repeatedly tied it. The Germans have recently tried it. And the Chinese are so fed up with the Germans coming along. But some people would push back on you, Alexander, and say, yeah, but now it's Trump, the great negotiator. I know, I know. Well, exactly. He has a good relationship with Xi. He'll get, he'll do what Biden

could not do. Yeah, but the point is that Zee also has a very good relationship with Putin. And she always sticks to Chinese policies and Chinese national interests. And what the Chinese always, and invariably say in response to any kind of pressure of this kind from the United States, not just about their relations with Russia, but their relations with any other country, is that their relations with their any other country are their sovereign affair, they are not going to allow the United States to dictate to. to China what those policies should be. So I cannot imagine, I don't believe, that C is going to change stance on this.

I've never known the Chinese to do this, and I'm sure they won't. I mean, such an enormous reversal of Chinese policy, and not just Chinese policy, but, you know, Chinese doctrine, if you like, in the way that they conduct relations, giving the United States some kind of role in China's foreign policy with third countries, that just cannot see. Why C would conceivably agree? All of the indications at the moment anyway that we get from China, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, for example,

spoke about Trump's latest sanctions against Luke Oil and Rosnev. He said, and this is again completely in line with what the Chinese always say, China opposes all unilateral sanctions. So, I'm sure that C will tell Trump no. Now, why does Trump want to do that? Because Trump still believes he's the great deal maker. His tremendous force of personality is going to get C to change his stance. He still wants to believe that China has this enormous, urge to, you know, accommodate the United States, Trump always overrates his own ability to persuade people. And he's also, and this is perhaps the other thing, operating inside this framework, I noticed that he repeated it to the media, that China and Russia aren't really friends, that this is some kind of relationship of convenience,

that they have a long history of tension and antagonism with each other. So for that reason, you know, because they don't really like each other very much, deep down, and each hankers in some ways to do some kind of deal with the Americans, that that gives him some kind of opening to set them off against.

each other. He's tried that with Russians, as by the way Biden did. And he's now going to try it with the Chinese as well. And of course, he's tried it with the Indians too, exactly, yeah. And of course, again, I think that certainly with the Russians and the Chinese, I mean, this is, I mean, it's not just based on a historical misunderstanding. It's straightforwardly wrong. It isolates one relatively brief period of Russian-Chinese interactions. The Sinai Soviets split of the 1960s, then assumes that this is true of the whole history of Russian-Chinese relations, which actually extends all the way back to the time of Peter the Great,

which has generally been rather good. But no West, I mean, I myself encountered this every day. I mean, you know, I recently did a talk in Oxford and I had, you know, all sorts of people there telling me, you know, you didn't realize China and Russia really ain't each other. This isn't going to work out. And it is such an ingrained belief that so many people have and which Trump, by the way, undoubtedly has, that is very, very difficult to argue against. Yeah, Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country, and Russia and China hate each other.

If you don't understand that today in 2025, with everything that we've seen between Russia and China, all the deals, all the summits, all the meanings, all the trade, the power of Siberia, too, all of these things, if you don't understand today that these countries are not only friends. I mean, they're effectively allies. Bricks, everything we've seen in bricks being built with bricks. If you still haven't gotten the message that these two countries are in it for the long haul, that I don't know what to say.

I mean, you're living in La La Land. You really are delusional. On this issue, far too many people are. Far too many people are. And, you know, but there is, I mean, as I said, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, It's such an attractive belief that people can never quite give it up. That's the trouble. China to trash.

It's energy cooperation with Russia. It's friendship with the tourism that they now have with each other, right? The tourism visa deals that they've arranged between each other. The Chinese cars that you saw in Moscow. The cars that are everywhere, yeah, that are everywhere that have displaced, that have removed Germany out of the freaking market, you know, you have all of this cooperation between China and Russia. And then you get down to the military aspect of this. Basically, what all of these people are saying is that China is going to help the United

States destroy Russia so that sometime in the future, the United States can destroy China. Right? I mean, that's basically what they're asking of China. Yes. Yes. Apparently Wang Yi said that, made exactly that point, by the way, to Kayakales. He said, what you're asking us to do is to destroy Russia so that you can come after us. Exactly.

It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. But they can't shake it. No. No. I mean, just a real quick final question. Isn't this such a big mistake from Trump to bring up Russia during this conversation?

In the same way that Modi is sick of constantly bringing up Russia to the point where Modi doesn't even want to meet with Trump. I mean, he's actively trying to avoid Trump because he's so sick of the whole Russia thing, you know, stop Russian oil and this or that. He's tired of it. He's actually saying, you know, I'm trying to avoid this guy now because I'm so sick of embezzering me about Russia and Russian oil. I mean, this could have the same effect with China.

Yes, he absolutely can't have the same effect. effect on China. If the Chinese concludes that the only reason the United States wants to talk to them is because of Russia, then the Chinese are going to say to themselves, well, there's no point then in talking with the United States period, because this is not something that we're going to bargain about. And it also shows ultimately that the Americans are not dealing with us in good faith because they're not dealing with us because they want to resolve these trade issues. Exactly the point you made earlier in the program. They're not here to discuss trade. They're not here to discuss any of these things. All they're doing is engaging in another big

complicated geopolitical play. They think they're Henry Kissinger and they want to play that game with us again. And there's no point in us wasting our time, wasting our time talking about it. Yeah. All right, we will end the video there. The durand.locals.com. We're on X. We are on Rumble and Telegram, and we are also on Substack. So check us out there.

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