Tag: Trump, Donald J

Trump’s Sharp Turn on China: Embracing It as a Peer Power

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After meeting with China’s top diplomat in Malaysia last summer, Secretary of State Marco Rubio uttered a line that made few waves at the time but would later help pave the way for an abrupt change. The United States and China, Mr. Rubio said, had an “opportunity here to achieve some strategic stability” and find areas of cooperation. He used the phrase again in February while talking about China in the Caribbean, also to little notice. Chinese officials picked up on Mr. Rubio’s remarks and suggested to their U.S. counterparts…

What To Know as China’s Xi Jinping Heads to North Korea

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The last time China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, traveled to North Korea, that country’s dictator, Kim Jong-un, was reeling from sanctions and failed nuclear talks with the United States. Now, nearly seven years later, as Mr. Xi returns to North Korea on Monday, he will meet with a leader who is newly emboldened by an alliance with Russia that has helped his economy break out of isolation. Mr. Xi is expected to use the two-day summit with Mr. Kim to project a united front between allies against the West. But…

Trump Aims New Tariffs at 59 Countries and the European Union

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President Trump has proposed tariffs of at least 10 percent on 60 American trading partners, his most aggressive effort yet to enact new import duties after the Supreme Court struck down the administration’s sweeping tariffs. Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, said on Tuesday night that investigations found that the 59 countries, along with the 27-nation European Union, had failed to enact or effectively enforce laws prohibiting imports made with forced labor. The administration, invoking a legal provision known as Section 301, proposed a 12.5 percent duty on imports from…

Why America Is Its Own Biggest Geopolitical Risk

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This is an edited transcript of “The Ezra Klein Show.” You can listen to the episode wherever you get your podcasts. Over the past month, there have been two dominant stories in American foreign policy. One, of course, is the war with Iran. The other is the much-anticipated summit between President Trump and Xi Jinping of China. If you look closely at both of these stories, you see that our foreign policy has entered into a period of absolute incoherence. Trump said that the point of the war with Iran…

China Aims A.I. at Predicting Who Could Pose a Political Risk

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A Chinese company has been trying to develop artificial intelligence-powered technology that would enable authoritarian governments to not just monitor dissidents but also potentially predict who could become one in the future. The work, which appears to be in the research stage, is ripped out of dystopian science fiction, offering a glimpse of a world in which an authoritarian state is able to move against its citizens before they begin any public dissent. The Chinese company, Geedge Networks, sells a commercial version of the Great Firewall, the surveillance and censorship…

China’s Rise in Drug Development Looms Over U.S.

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For decades, an annual gathering of oncologists has featured drug trials that were run mainly at American and European hospitals. But at this year’s meeting, which is being held in Chicago this weekend, the signs are everywhere of China’s ascendance as a powerhouse in drug development — and of the threat that many believe it poses to American biotechnology. The clearest sign: In what appears to be a first, one of the conference’s five coveted headliners is a presentation of a clinical trial conducted only in China. That milestone at…

The Museum of Wretched Ideas Has Reopened

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It’s the year 2026, and sometimes it feels as if we’re taking a nice leisurely walk through a Museum of Wretched Ideas. Consider what’s happening at home. Tariffs raise prices and restrain economic growth, while the federal government embraces both Gilded Age corruption and a version of the spoils system. A disturbing number of young people on the right are fascinated with fascism. An extraordinary 34 percent of young people overall express a favorable view of communism, and young Americans are far more likely than their parents or grandparents to…

After China Orders a Times Reporter to Leave the Country, the U.S. Reciprocates

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China’s government has ordered a New York Times reporter to leave the country, and the Trump administration has responded by revoking the visa of a U.S.-based Chinese state media journalist, in a diplomatic tit-for-tat with implications for press freedoms and U.S.-China relations. The expulsion order in February of the Times reporter, Vivian Wang, is the latest example of a crackdown by Beijing on foreign correspondents whose reporting challenges the official line of President Xi Jinping’s authoritarian government. It also inflames long-running tensions between China and the United States over the…

Trump’s Pursuit of a Partnership With China Raises Concerns in India

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Between the military honor guard, flag-waving schoolchildren and state banquet in Beijing last week, President Trump found time to lavish praise on Xi Jinping, the head of the Chinese Communist Party, calling him “a great leader” and “a friend.” The two men, Mr. Trump said, would “have a fantastic future together.” Mr. Trump flew home without stopping anywhere else in Asia. In interviews during and after the trip, he made no reassuring remarks on U.S. allies or partners in the region. He did say, however, that he would revisit arms…

Elon Musk and Other CEOs on Trump’s Trip to China Sought Relief

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The chief executives who accompanied President Trump to a meeting and grand banquet in China last week were seeking to curry favor with both the Trump administration and the Chinese government, keenly aware that the support of either could make or break their businesses. But the delegation — which included executives from Boeing, Apple, Nvidia, Cargill and other firms — arrived in Beijing with a variety of commercial complaints about doing business in China, some of which are public, some of which have not been previously reported. In recent weeks,…