The strongest probably treat each other, communicate and act differently than they do with others.
But what happened in less than 48 hours, for the American President Donald Trump to fundamentally change his assessment of China, and the Chinese leader Xi Jinping, as for example happened last weekend? As recently as last Friday, the head of the White House warned that Beijing’s latest tariff measures (directed towards increasingly careful domestic and international trade in rare earth materials) are an “extremely aggressive stance in trade” by a country that aims to “hold the whole world captive” because of (its) rare earth materials.
Not only did the Chinese, in Trump’s words, “surprise him (with new restrictive measures), but, as he announced, “Other countries are also very angry because of Trade hostility, which came out of nowhere”. Reserving the right to retaliate, Donald Trump announced on the same occasion a plus 100 percent tariff on “everything coming from China” as early as November 1, “and maybe even earlier”.
“China simply took us by surprise. I have a very good relationship with President Xi, and they did it,” the 47th US President boasted on Friday.
At the same time, Trump hinted that he doesn’t really see the point of – no matter how much he mentioned it since January inauguration in the second presidential term—meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. “I will be there anyway (at the ASEAN summit at the end of October in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia), so I guess it could happen (meeting with Xi). We’ll see what happens,” Trump hinted on October 10.
A little later—perhaps after the latter, and a record-breaking collapse on Wall Street on Friday (the most brutal since April 2, when on the self-proclaimed “American Liberation Day”, Trump launched a global “tariff barrage”), the head of the White House sounded very different on Sunday. That is, more conciliatory.
“The highly respected President of China, Xi Jinping, had a bad moment. He certainly does not want a Depression for his country, and neither do I. America wants to help China, not hurt it,” said the head of the White House, without further clarification.
What happened about this matter during the weekend in Washington is unclear. Just like what could have been “Xi Jinping’s bad moment”.
On the one hand, Jamison Greer, the US trade representative, pointed out that due to the announcement of the latest Chinese tariff measures, Washington contacted Beijing for a suitable telephone conversation, but that “hello-hello” did not happen, reported Reuters. On the other hand, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant revealed today that Washington was in constant contact with Beijing last weekend, and that the Trump-Xi meeting is still “in play” at the end of the month.
Meanwhile, Beijing has not yet uttered a word regarding Trump’s announcements that he would meet with Xi in two weeks.
What happens to the announced fifth round of customs negotiations between the USA and China (the current “tariff truce” expires on November 9th) seems like a question from a far.
