The Duran Podcast - Xi-Trump Summit, Big Foreign Policy Questions Left Unanswered

Episode Date: May 14, 2026

Xi-Trump Summit, Big Foreign Policy Questions Left Unanswered

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the meeting between Trump and Xi in Beijing. The first meeting between them was two hours long. Then both delegations went to a different venue, and the meetings continue. I believe they're now attending the state banquet as we're recording this video. So by the time this video goes up, they would have concluded the dinners and everything would have been done there as well. And then we have one more day, or they're going to be leaving tomorrow or maybe one more day of talks. Very quick, a summit, quick meetings, two hours between the two leaders. What are your thoughts?

They both said very nice things about one another as well. So just the vibe seemed very, very friendly, very positive, I guess, with the exception of some warnings about Taiwan. Anyway, go ahead. I'll say, yeah. You've put it, I think, very well, because This is a meeting in which you see two people who, you know, are very friendly with each other, very polite. Meetings have been relatively short. The summit meeting itself has been relatively short.

They don't seem to be discussing deep strategic questions very much. There's been the ceremonial banquet, which there always is, you know, in these, doing these visits. But it looks more like ceremony than it looks like. substance. It's not a sort of, and one doesn't get the sense of two leaders sitting together, engaging in tough negotiations about trade and economics and technology and about global strategy and about Ukraine and about the situation in the Middle East. It doesn't look like it's that kind of meeting. And a two-hour meeting is obviously not going to be enough to discuss those topics. And a two-day visit altogether also doesn't seem to be enough to cover these topics

fully or thoroughly. Now, the other thing to say is that when meetings take place between very senior leaders of, you know, great powers, president, of China and Russia or presidents of America and China or whatever. Usually, the meeting is preceded with a host of other meetings by more junior officials who work out and prepare the agendas and inform their chiefs of what the other side's position is so that when the meeting, the meeting, the meeting, between the leaders begins. They're fully briefed

about what the other side's views and positions are and there's a substantive discussion can follow without any room for misunderstanding. This time, nothing like that seems to have happened.

Again, it reminds me very much of Anchorage. The Anchorage meeting looked extremely underprepared. And we've been living with the result of that ever since. And this meeting between Xi Jinping and Trump also looks very underprepared. It's Trump comes along, big delegation made up almost entirely of business people, as far as I can see. They meet for two hours.

They have dinner together, you know, banquet. They're going to meet again. But it doesn't seem to me as if this is really a negotiation. It's more like a chat or a conversation between these leaders. And not a discussion where one can imagine anything very substantive going to come out of it, anything that is really going to change the political or economic weather, that is going to change the direction of policy. in China or the United States.

And that really does beg the question in that case of why this meeting is taking place at all. You know, was it really worth all the trouble of setting up a meeting like this for the president of the United States to fly all the way to Beijing to meet Xi Jinping with such a thin agenda

and such a thin, you know, prospectus. One thing that, of course, isn't being reported in the US, which for me tells the whole story, is that it seems that even as Trump is in Beijing, another foreign visitor is also there, and that is none other than the president of Tajikistan, which is one of the Central Asian states. Now, you would expect the Chinese just before they're going to meet with the president of the United States to clear the decks, to make sure that there's no one else there, so that all the top Chinese. Chinese officials can be focused entirely on talking with him. The fact that the president of

Tajikistan is also on a visit doesn't suggest to me that the Chinese are taking this entirely seriously, just as a say. That's interesting. Yeah, I agree with you on that one. I mean, look, two hours, or even just a full day, a day of meetings, right? You're going from one location to another. You do your sightseeing and you do the ceremonies and the events. So maybe you have actual talking time of two hours in a meeting with one another and maybe a couple of hours of small talk, right, as you're walking around from place to place. I mean, it's enough time to lay down your red lines, I guess, maybe to put your positions down. I mean, Rubio said that the goal of the United States,

or one of the goals, at least with foreign policy, is to get China to drop support for Iran. Iran. Okay. So, I mean, you could sit down with with Xi Jinping. You could tell China, we want you to back off of Iran. Iran can say no. You could say our red line is this. China could say our red line is that. China, Taiwan this, Taiwan, that. I mean, that's that's two hours right there. Well, it is, it is, it is right there. But it is also an absurd thing to come along to China and to demand. I mean, you know, Trump comes. along and tells Xi Jinping, look, I want you to stop supporting Iran, does he expect Xi Jinping to say yes? I mean, it's absurd. Now, let's just to illustrate how childish or amateur, that is, compare what happened in the 1970s when Nixon and Kissinger came to Beijing and met with Mao Zed. and Joan Lai. Now, at that time, China was providing enormous support to North Vietnam.

In fact, we know the extent of support that China was providing to North Vietnam at that time. And, of course, the United States was involved in a very, very intense war with the North Vietnamese, in which tens of thousands of American soldiers were killed. Now, did Nixon and Kiersinger come along and say to Mount Zetung and, and like, we want you to stop going support to North Vietnam? No, of course they didn't. I mean, they knew that was a complete waste of time. They knew perfectly well that the Chinese would never agree to do something like that

because that was a fundamental commitment that China had made and it was not going to drop North Vietnam simply because the President of the United States asked them to. what Nixon and Kiersinger did is they had deep and prolonged discussions with the Chinese about the situation in North Vietnam, the whole Vietnam War situation. And they wanted to see what the Chinese basically wanted. They wanted to explain to the Chinese what the United States wanted. There was, in other words, a deep dialogue between the two sides. about the Vietnam War. And at the end of that process, the Americans and the Chinese came away

understanding the other better. And that did eventually facilitate the progress of the negotiations between the Americans and the North Vietnamese. This is not what we're seeing this start. Coming along and saying, you know, we want red lines here. We're going to draw our red lines here. and what are your red lines. I mean, that doesn't take you forward. That is not diplomacy, certainly not the kind of diplomacy that is needed in this situation.

This is simply engaging in talking points and conversation, which leaves ultimately absolutely nothing changed. Well, I was going to be my question to you. Where do you go from here? Well, I don't know where you go for it. I'm going to make a suggestion. Trump comes along.

He brings this enormous delegation of business people. I mean, the people from Nvidia is there. Tim Cook is there. Everyone. Elon Musk. Everybody. Everybody is there. Now, I'm going to suggest that that's where the real discussions are taking place.

Not Trump and Xi Jinping, but NVIDIA talking with the people who are involved in making the chips in China. Elon Musk discussing with the Chinese, well, you know, what's going to be the situation with EVs? At the moment, we're not allowing EVs into China, but, you know, are you going to let me expand my factory in Shanghai? What are we going to do about getting EVs from China into the US? What are you going to give us in return? It seems to me that that's really where all the discussion is going to be. It's all going to be about cutting business deals and making lots of money, lots of money for these big companies, obviously,

and business between these companies. And at the top, floating, you know, above it all, you have Xi Jinping, who's probably, you know, saying to himself, well, I'm going to have Donald Trump. I have to have him there because he's the president. But it'll be Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, having polite conversations with each other, enjoying banquets when all the real business is being done by the business people between themselves. That, it seems to me, is far more likely what is really going on. Do you think they discussed Iran in depth or as much as they could? Do you think that was the main item that they were discussing? Do you think that China brought up the blockade and trying to block energy to China, to the Trump administration? Well, I'm sure they did.

and the Chinese, as you rightly say, brought up Taiwan, and as they always do, would have told the Americans, you know, that we have a red line. But I agree. I suspect if you're talking about foreign policy, Iran was probably the biggest subject, and the Chinese will have tried to get the Americans to understand that interfering with their oil trade is not something the China accepts or will accept.

The Chinese, as we discussed recently in a video that we did, have imposed a law, made a decision that Chinese companies will not respect American sanctions on oil products, on energy products. And the Chinese will want to impress on the US that that remains the case that China is not going to let itself be dictated to on the energy issue. And my guess is there's also going to be some discussions about rare earths as well. Though again, I suspect the business people are going to be talking about that. I mean, NVIDIA needs rare earths to make its chips. Vindvia, of course, designs the chips. The chips are mostly made in Taiwan.

But the people from Vidia will want to talk about that. Elon Musk will want to talk about that and about batteries and all that kind of thing. But that's that kind of discussion. There just isn't enough time to discuss a complicated topic like Iran properly. Putin is going to be in China next week, I think. Yeah. Or in two weeks. Well, nobody knows exactly.

But the word is that he's definitely on his way. And I'm going to suggest that's going to be a very different meeting. I mean, he's probably going to be there for longer. He's going to come with a mass. massive delegation, as he always does. Most of the Russian government will be there, and there will be much more substantive discussions and negotiations. And of course, the Russians and the Chinese talk with each other all the time. They talk continuously. So the dynamic of that relationship is a completely different one from this one. This one, as I said,

is mostly about the business people meeting with each other and having discussions and cutting the deals. That's what this is about. It is not about geopolitics, global strategy, spheres of influence, even ultimately Iran or Taiwan. I doubt that anything about those topics has changed as a result of this meeting. Don't think they have the time for the preparation. All the preparation, exactly. Okay. Anything else that you want to add or should we end the video there? Well, not really, but this is a problem.

Diplomacy conducted in this way is not diplomacy. And the United States does need to talk substantively with powers like China. we need proper negotiations again. And somebody eventually in the United States is going to have to do that. To give an example of what I mean, it's all very well for Elon Musk, for example, to cut deals with whoever he wants to cut deals with in China. And that does take us forward to a certain extent. But unless there is an overarching discussion between the United States,

States and China on trade and economic policy, then it's entirely possible that whatever deals Musk and Chinese businesses do with each other, it will all fall apart because in a few months time, we'll be back to trade wars and all of those things. And, you know, there's also the issue of rare earths. That also needs a serious discussion. And at the moment, it doesn't look as if that is happening. I think the Chinese are ready for those kind of discussions. I'm not saying they would welcome them, but they're certainly ready for them. The United States needs to sort itself out and get to the point of conducting discussions properly. I wonder whether this administration is able to do that. I've recently taken to saying that it seems to me that at the moment,

It's not just that the U.S. is not agreement capable, is agreement incapable, which is what the Russians are saying. It is that it's negotiations incapable as well. And at some point, that has to change. Well, how do you get anything done when your goal is to blockade the other, to block their energy, their energy, their oil and their gas? How can you get anything done? I mean, you have to solve that first before you get anything moving. Well, you can't. I mean, that's the kind of things you have to be ready to talk about. You have to have a prolonged discussion with the Chinese about, you know, your blockades and things of that kind.

And the Chinese are going to push back. And there's going to be, and at times intense and prolonged discussion, and it might last weeks. And you have to have those discussions before the leaders meet. I mean, before Nixon came to China in 1972, there were a whole set of meetings between Kissinger and the Chinese, Kissinger and Zhou In Lai, in which they prepared for Nixon's visit. So this is what you need to do today. But nobody in Washington is doing it.

and nobody seems to understand the need for it, which is really very worrying. I don't think they want to address it, Alexander. No, well, I'm sure they do. I don't think they want to address it because I think the United States, the Trump administration and the deep state behind him, I think they believe that they've got this clever plan going on, this clever game going on where they are going to control the energy flows of the entire world and no one's going to take notice. I mean, it feels like they think they're fooling everybody, you know, by picking off Venezuela,

by going after Russia, by going after Iran, by blockading Iran and effectively blockading oil and gas that goes to China or to Asia. As they talk about uranium enrichment, you know, they want everyone to focus on uranium enrichment. But I mean, at the end of the day, this is a blockade directed. at China, obviously. I mean, how do you address that in this type of setting? Right, right? You don't address you, but that is, that is again part of the problem. The thing to understand about this is that the Chinese know all about this. The reason they

know all about this is because it's all out there in the American media. The Chinese read the American media just as everyone else does. Of course they do. And in the In the meantime, even as the US is promoting this policy and is refusing to engage China in discussions about it, the Chinese are doing things. It's others that they're sitting there on their hands and doing nothing. They're building up their stockpiles. They're continuing to import oil. They're about to cut massive deals with the Russians. They are not idle.

It's not as if the US is really tricking China, because even as the United States plays this cunning game, as it believes, it brags about the fact that it's playing this cunning game all over its media. So the Chinese know everything that the Americans are doing. Xi Jinping is definitely briefed about all of this. So again, that begs the question. If you don't want to talk to the Chinese substantively about these geopolitical issues, then why have a meeting like this at all? Well, you're going to do it because obviously Elon Musk, who's already the richest man in the world, is going to become even richer.

But is that really what this is all about now? Is this what American foreign policy has been reduced in? Just saying. Well, just to finish the video to wrap it. it up. I think it's, the business meeting was the next best thing, right? You make it into a business meeting because at first you thought maybe a month or two ago, you thought that you would have a meeting that was based on foreign policy and geopolitics and this type of game that's being conducted, but you would be attending that meeting with all the leverage. You would have had Venezuela,

You would have taken Iran off the chess board. You would have had Russia as well. You would have gone to Xi Jinping and said, look, Venezuela's gone. Iran is gone. And Russia's about to be, about to be defeated as well. So, you know, here we are, President Xi. I've got all the, as Trump always likes to put, I've got all the cards. I've got all the UNO cards, right?

That was probably what they were planning on happening. So if you can't get that, then you pivot to a business meeting. Look, let's just bring the CEOs. Let's just go make a ton of money. No, I agree. I mean, Madero's captured. Putin is killed in Valdai.

Chamin is also killed. Russia and Iran out of the picture. And you come and dictate terms with China. Well, so far that's not working. And in that case, what you really need to do is you, if you're the United States, first of all, I should say, I mean, that was a incredibly bad and reckless foreign policy for starters. But all right, you've tried it. It's failed. Or at least it's not working at the moment. Venezuela succeeded. Well, Venezuela succeeded. But Venezuela was.

Venezuela was the least of it. I mean, Iran is big. Russia ultimately is the big one. So you haven't succeeded with Iran and Russia. So what you need to do, if you're going to talk to the Chinese at all, is you need to pivot and you need to think more deeply about other things. things and see whether you can recalibrate your strategy. Going along for an entirely empty meeting, bringing a train of business people along with you, have those businessmen

cutting deals. All that's going to communicate to the Chinese is that you're not serious about actual relations with China. And the Chinese are going to go away. They're going to say the United States is still drifting along on this anti-Chinese policy that they have. And we have to work to prepare for this, in which case, relations are going to get worse. Okay. We will end the video there. The durand.com. We are on X.

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