Trump welcomes Xi to the White House

Luke Wilson (0:00)

Investors aren't happy about what they're hearing from talks between the US and China. It's World Business Express from the BBC World Service. I'm Luke Wilson. Politicians gather in Cambodia to take on the global scamming industry, and we'll find out why the price of protein is on the rise. China's stock markets have had their worst trading day in a month, with investors frustrated to trade truce between Washington and Beijing has only been extended by two months. Donald Trump has welcomed Xi Jinping to the White House for talks in the last half hour. Let's hear some of that arrival.

The two countries have already announced that heavy tariffs will stay paused until January. Jeff Moon was US Assistant Trade Representative for China under Barack Obama, and now runs the consultancy China Moon Strategies.

Jeff Moon (1:00)

I don't think anybody wants to go back to all that trade war where Trump is, you know, he had threatened to raise tariffs up to 145%, which would basically have stopped all bilateral trade. On the Chinese side, the strategy is really just to time Trump out, to provide as little as possible in the bilateral relationship so that they can wait out the two years of his term.

Luke Wilson (1:25)

So do you think that the truce is the best we can hope for?

Jeff Moon (1:29)

There will be incremental deals. The beginning of Trump's first term, remember, he wanted to talk about China's industrial policy, about the subsidies, about the predatory pricing that we see by the Chinese throughout the world. We're not talking about that anymore.

The Trump administration now is accepting China as it is and more in a much more reactive mode. So without getting to the real sources of the US-China conflict, I don't see how we get much beyond these tariff reductions or this tariff pause.

Luke Wilson (2:01)

And for you, Jeff, looking at this relationship now between the US and China, what is it like to compare it to 10 years ago or further when you were working for the US government on trade relationships with China?

Jeff Moon (2:14)

I really feel that in my career, I've seen the full cycle of really trying to make a go out of it. And now people are really engaging at a much more minimal level. And when we think about the distrust, I mean, the distrust is no greater than, AI is a great example. Besson has talked about a warning system between the US and China. But in fact, past warning systems have not worked because China has simply not picked up the phone.

Luke Wilson (2:42)

Jeff Moon, the former Assistant US Trade Representative for China. For a long time, Cambodia has been a big part of the multi-billion-dollar scam industry. But the country's Prime Minister has insisted it will no longer be a haven for scam centers. It's estimated millions of workers around the world may have found themselves incarcerated, beaten or even electrocuted before being forced to scam victims online. Now representatives from more than a dozen countries, including the US, China and the UK, are attending a summit in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh aimed at stamping it out. Speaking to me from there, UK Minister David Hanson said he's optimistic about the direction of travel.

David Hanson (3:21)

They are very keen to reduce the level of scam operations in country. And this morning, for example, I visited a former casino on the edge of the border with Vietnam, where potentially around 7,000 people had either voluntary worked there or been trafficked to work there to undertake direct attacks on businesses, individuals through text messages, through email messages, through romance fraud. And that has now been closed down. And that is one of a large number that have been shut by the Cambodian government since January.

Luke Wilson (3:57)

I want to play you something. We've been speaking to Nathan Southern, who's from the Eyewitness Project, which supports survivors of these scam centres and is actually at that conference in Phnom Penh with you.

Nathan Southern (4:08)

I was sitting in that conference today. They were complementing all of the law enforcement engagement between the different nations and how much of a success this was. But at the same time, I was receiving messages from people who have gotten out of the compounds, who had went through horrific torture, horrific things. And they are still, six, seven months later, stuck on the streets of Cambodia.

Luke Wilson (4:29)

Do you think enough is being done to help the people at the heart of this?

David Hanson (4:34)

Well, I think it's really important that we recognise this as a criminal justice issue. But we also recognise it as one which impacts upon human slavery, trafficking and human rights. And I've been very clear in my interlocutors with both the Cambodian government, but we're also with a range of ambassadors and government ministers I've met from other countries, that we need to have a positive human rights approach to look at how we can stop human trafficking. For example, we were told that we're around 7,000 people who've disappeared from that scam centre and we don't know where they've gone. That's a legitimate concern. We need to look at how we safeguard those individuals. If they've come to a country to commit crime, they need to be brought to justice. But if they've been trafficked or been duped into coming to a country, we need to look at how we can help support them.