Xi Jinping y Donald Trump decide this Thursday whether the two largest economies in the world continue to fight, with the known repercussions for the rest, or reduce their discrepancies to manageable magnitudes. Also this Thursday, the alleged supernatural gifts for business of one are measured against the discreet diligence of the other. And it will be aired how the contenders for the global throne are because a trade war It is, after all, a war. The previous months certify that Chinaeight years after the first, he has shaken off his shyness and complexes.
“The relationship with China is very good,” Trump insisted to the press. “I think we are going to achieve a very good result for our country and for the world,” he added. Come so optimistic South Korea who has already revealed the appointment schedule with his “old friend”: Xi will receive him in Beijing after the lunar new year and soon after they will meet in Mar-a-Lago. In the previous stages of his Asian trip he has been flattered and soaped without restraint by the leaders whom he had fried with tariffs. Only China, after that famous “Liberation Day”, endured the tit for tat, even though a stupefied Trump encouraged it to surrender again and again. An impartial observer is clear about the outcome, even the most stingy press with China. “Whatever the outcome, the meeting is already a victory for China,” CNN headlines its analysis this week. “Why China is winning the trade war,” explains ‘The Economist’, a tireless announcer of the communist collapse for decades.
Xi and Trump will avoid sudden turmoil in Gyeongju, site of the APEC summit and former medieval capital. It is a small, charming city, dotted with temples, pagodas and tombs, as abundant in charm as it is lacking in infrastructure. They will seek intimacy in a military base from the neighbor Busana muscular port city, recently gained global fame for a zombie movie. Trump has already announced that it will be a long meetingthree or four hours, because the agenda rules out tedium. It will begin by seeking the most vigorous Chinese fight against the chemical precursors of fentanyl that decimates its population. He has assumed this Wednesday that he will find it and will be able to lift his duty of 20%. They are the only ones who resist even during the agreed tariff extensions. And after the fentanyl, the frenzy: the restrictions on technological exports on the one hand and rare earths on the other, the sale of TikTok, Taiwancrossed port tariffs, tensions in the South China Sea, the release of Hong Kong press magnate Jimmy Lai… It is chimerical to settle so many conflicts in one day, some already entrenched. It will be enough for nothing to break in this meeting, the first of Trump’s second term, and to avoid past short circuits. In the final days of the first, cornered by his criminal management of the pandemicTrump closed even the most basic communication circuits with Beijing.
Praise tour
This Thursday will be his most demanding Asian date after having collected compliments and gifts. If you received a new golf set (club, ball and bag) in Japan yesterday, today South Korea He was awarded a golden crown and the Grand Order of Mugunghwa, the country’s highest decoration for a civilian. “A great meeting,” Trump summarized after meeting with Lee Jae-myungSouth Korean president. The most pressing issue, as in Japan, was to clarify the details of the multi-million dollar investment in US industries agreed in exchange for cutting tariffs from 25 to 15%.
Seoul alleged that sending the $350 billion in cash would ruin its economy and proposed a credit formula. What was agreed this Wednesday remains halfway: 200,000 million paid in cash and in installments, and the remaining 150,000 million in investments in shipyards. Considering Lee’s meager room for maneuver, with the automobile industry national, suffocated with higher tariffs than its Japanese and European competitors, can be considered a success. Lee has set out to restore a healthy balance between Beijing and Washington after the unapologetic pro-Americanism of the conservative Yoon Suk Yeol, who will go down in history for singing Don McLean’s “American Pie” in the White House and for his delirious military self-coup.
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