Why did Trump let Xi off the hook?

James Rubin (0:02)

This is a Global Production.

Christiane Amanpour (0:05)

I just can't help but saying, Trump took Xi to the National Archive to see the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Where is the disconnect here? He's busy trampling all over it in the United States.

James Rubin (0:16)

Xi tramples on the idea of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights every day. That's what the Communist Party is all about.

Christiane Amanpour (0:23)

Xi is not exactly a Democrat. Do they think, wow, look, the superpower can't get away with pacifying an Iran, maybe we can't do it in Taiwan?

James Rubin (0:31)

President Trump has made a point of using America's power to push harder on our friends and to use America's power to come closer to our adversaries.

Christiane Amanpour (0:46)

Hello everyone, and welcome to the latest episode of The Ex Files with me, Christiane Amanpour, back in London after the UN Summit in New York.

James Rubin (0:54)

And me, Jamie Rubin, still here in New York City.

Christiane Amanpour (0:58)

And here's the thing, the big summit was actually in Washington between Trump and Xi. And we want to ask, did Trump challenge Xi on anything, not publicly as far as we know, but at least behind closed doors? And if he didn't, why?

Is America's red carpet now rolled out just for the autocrats? Did the US get anything from this summit? Did get some pandas or at least a promise of pandas? And what have we learned from UNGA, from the assembly, from the meeting of world leaders? And of course, I had a lot of exclusive interviews, including with the president of Brazil and the mayor of New York and the head of the European Union, etc. All right, Jamie, everybody's asking now still, because it was the big issue, what did Trump get from Xi? And did this summit really, was it justified on this scale?

It's hard to know and hard to sort of assess what Trump got. We know there was a lot of pomp and pageantry and he kept praising Xi and there was a lot of beauty surrounding this. But on the big issues, do you think he got anything out of it?

James Rubin (2:09)

The short answer is we don't know. I don't know, but I do know that President Trump has changed the approach the United States has taken to China. Previously, there was a correlation, a careful calibration that more closely the Chinese were feted and given more respect and all the pomp and the circumstances. It was expected that that would be accompanied by substantial results in improving relations on certain matters of substance, whether that was AI, whether that was human rights, whether that was trade, whether that was dealing with the South China Sea, etc.

President Trump's approach is completely different. He believes that he needs to develop a personal relationship with these leaders, and that it's only through that personal relationship that later he can get the advantages the United States needs to get from a positive relationship. The best you can say about it is that things are, as both sides want to say, they've stabilized. I'm not sure they were destabilized before, but they're stabilized now.

The first term, President Trump was showing the world the dangers from China. President Biden, in his term, was showing the world the dangers from China, whether it comes from their support for the war in Ukraine, from Russia, whether it was the South China Sea, whether it was their relations with Taiwan, whatever the threat was, that threat was described and understood. Now, it's a very different type of relationship. It's much more like, let's show our personal relationship and presumably and hopefully, and we'll find out whether in the end that brings us some benefits. But so far, those are not apparent.

Christiane Amanpour (4:01)

Xi pointed out that they are going to meet twice again this year. One will be, I can't remember what it is, and the other one is the G20.

So there are two meetings in...

There you go.

James Rubin (4:13)

It's an APEC summit, I believe, sometime.

Christiane Amanpour (4:15)

So in November, and he's invited the Trumps to the China part of it, which I think is in Shenzhen. And then they have invited him to the, obviously, to the G20 in Mar-a-Lago. By the way, they've also invited Putin. And there was a lot of red carpet rolling and smoothing when Putin came to Alaska. Again, Jamie, that was a personal meeting that appeared to yield absolutely nothing on policy at all on ending the war or even coming to a ceasefire talks or peace talks with Putin. And, you know, a lot of the saucy press pointed out that they were Americans on their knees, smoothing out the red carpet before Xi stepped down. By the way, a lot, just before we get to the crucial issue of AI, if you look at some of these write-ups, while Xi is talking about how the two nations must coexist in peace, neither of them talked about the Iran War. And we know from reporting that the US believes China, Xi is helping Iran with critical information regarding American positions and this and that over the Iran War.