What would you say is not going right?

Well, it's not what's not going right.

It's the fact that not much is going on at all.

They've met.

Certainly from the standpoint of President Trump likes to declare that the relationship has been significantly improved because of his deep and lasting friendship with Xi Jinping.

But on issues of trade, very little progress was made.

The trade truce that was struck in South Korea nearly a year ago was extended by only two months at the latest meeting in Washington.

Could you tell us a bit about what you're saying there?

What would you say is not going right?

Well, it's not what's not going right.

It's the fact that not much is going on at all.

They've met.

Certainly from the standpoint of President Trump likes to declare that the relationship has been significantly improved because of his deep and lasting friendship with Xi Jinping.

But on issues of trade, very little progress was made.

The trade truce that was struck in South Korea nearly a year ago was extended by only two months at the latest meeting in Washington.

Could you tell us a bit about what you're saying there?

How do you interpret what is going to happen here?

Well, it's great to see you, Sarah.

Um, I, I hate to throw cold water on what Eamon just said, but, uh, you know, I would say don't hold your breathFor a spectacular result.

I think both sides want stability, whatever that means.

They don't wanna rock the boat.

Uh, and, um, you know, this idea of a board of trade I think is interesting, but highly, uh, premature.

I think, um, you know, they certainly wanna defer any, uh, subsequent actions on tariffs.

We've talked a lot about what the US wants from China, but what do you think, Stephen, that China wants from the US right now?

A lot of ink spilled this week about how the rest of the world views U.S. security guarantees from here on out and whether that is a net benefit to Xi Jinping.

Well, Carl, April 2nd today is a good benchmark.

Today, the morning after Trump's nothing burger of a speech that really didn't describe anything you could call strategic and is completely inconsistent with his effort to develop a national strategic strategy published a few months ago.

Compare that today with a year ago when he rolled out the Great Liberation Day tariffs against the entire world that were recently just declared illegal.

You know, you've got a disruptive president enacting personalized, whimsical policies that make no sense legally or strategically.

And, you know, Xi Jinping represents a China who attempts to think strategically.

They've done that for years.

What do you think they would try to offer to get what they want?

Do we understand that in our negotiations with China, the unique character of this regime in Beijing?

First of all, Tom, uh, thank you for, uh, talking to me, making, your intro makes me sound a little bit like Thomas Edison.

But, uh, with respect to Ken's point, um, I, I would respectfully disagree.

China's been on a trajectory that has been pointing in this direction really since, um, the late '70s and, uh, uh, post-Mao, Deng Xiaoping China.

Uh, under Xi Jinping, things have certainly crystallized much more around, uh, an authoritarian, uh, single leader-dominated system, but the trend of, um, economic policy, state-directed industrial policy, repressed, uh, consumption, uh, an, uh, unbalanced Chinese economy increasingly at odds with, um, the rest of the world, that has been evident for a, a long time prior to the ascendancy of Xi Jinping.

Are the people of China, are they comfortable with where they are now and, and, and where President Xi is taking this economy?

Look, I've, I've written books about, uh, US-China codependency, the relationship, uh, that was initially constructive, uh, uh, from perspective of both coun- uh, countries relying on each other, and I think, uh, the people of China that I speak to, and I still go there on a regular basis, uh, would love nothing better than to go back to that comfortable codependency.

But the leaders, the political leaders of both nations, and in the case of the US, I wouldn't just ha- uh, single out the president, but most importantly, I'd emphasize the US Congress, don't see it that, uh, way anymore, and the Chinese people don't fully understand, uh, what has changed, uh, to alter that balance.

What's not to like about this quote unquote deal?

Well, thanks for having me on, Kelly.

Look, process is progress.

We've had no process.

And so I think that is encouraging in and of itself.

But, you know, we've been down this road before.

And what I heard from Scott Besant when I woke up early this morning is he's pretty much rolling out the old script that was used in the first Trump administration.

It's going to be status quo, right? It just feels very status quo going forward now, which for markets that might be a very good thing.

How do you see this playing out?

Well.

the markets were clearly in a death spiral and Trump flinched today and gave us all some breathing room.

But as you heard from Secretary Letnick, Trump is still clinging to this harebrained scheme to remake the world with tariffs, and that's not something that's going to end well.

The China thing is unrelenting.

It's important to note the sequence of events.

We move first with these reciprocal tariffs.

So we've always said here that there are many other ways China could retaliate, particularly against countries who do business over there, like an Apple or Starbucks or any other company that has executives over there who could easily be detained for a myriad of reasons.