LEILA FADEL, HOST:
For more on the state of U.S.-China relations after President Trump - in President Trump's second term, we've got Nicholas Burns on the line. He served as ambassador to China under the Biden administration. He currently teaches diplomacy and international relations at Harvard University. Good morning, Ambassador.
NICHOLAS BURNS: Good morning, Leila.
FADEL: So, as we just heard, Trump rated this meeting with Xi 12 out of 10. But looking at the agreements that came out of it, did the U.S. get what it wants from China?
BURNS: You know, I think, Leila, what we're looking at is this was not a comprehensive trade deal. And it's more like an uneasy truce in a still simmering trade war between the two countries. There were some positives. Xi Jinping agreed to help the United States with fentanyl. The majority of the precursor chemicals that go into fentanyl, the synthetic opioid, come from the Chinese black market. President Biden had worked on this and now President Trump. And so let's hope the Chinese will fulfill their commitments to do more to help us.
Xi Jinping also agreed to buy more agricultural products from the United States. This is very important. China is the largest market for U.S. agricultural exports. Two years ago, the Chinese bought $41 billion worth of our ag products. And they haven't done anything this year because they've been playing hardball on the negotiations, especially on soybeans. So if, in fact, the Chinese will now engage in normal trade, it's going to help the American farmer.
And third, as your correspondent said, the Chinese two weeks ago surfaced a proposal to put export controls on rare earth metals. This would have roiled global markets and really interfered with trade. And they've decided to postpone that for a year. So I think those are solid achievements of this meeting. But here's the problem. The effective tariff rate between the two countries is now 47% on a $642 billion, two-way trade relationship. So they still have substantial tariffs on each other.
FADEL: Yeah.
BURNS: And there are sectoral tariffs that President Biden put in place - 100%, for instance, on Chinese electric vehicles. So they're still in place. So I think the trade war continues. There was a truce in South Korea. That's positive.
FADEL: Right.
BURNS: But expect a lot of further sparring between these two trade antagonists.
FADEL: Do you see this meeting as a path out of this trade war, though, with China?
BURNS: Possibly. But there's been a pattern since Liberation Day, when President Trump announced his big tariff proposal, global proposal, and that is that there now been three or four major meetings between the U.S. and China. They say they've resolved their differences, and then one or the other goes out and puts more tariffs on or does something that the other disagrees with. And so there's been a back-and-forth quality. It's not an easy relationship. The Chinese government can be extremely difficult to work with. They have been a serial violator of global trade laws for a generation now. So I don't think we can take from this meeting that somehow all the problems have been resolved because they have not.
FADEL: I'm curious. You know, you talked about the positives for the U.S. out of this meeting. Did China get what it wants from the U.S.?
BURNS: What China really wants is for the United States to remove its export - our export controls on the sale of advanced technologies into China. President Biden placed a complete restriction on the sale of American advanced semiconductors for AI purposes. And the reason he did that is because in China, if Intel or Nvidia export semiconductors into the Chinese market, that company, the Chinese company that receives the technology, would have to give that technology to the People's Liberation Army to try to outcompete the American military in our competition for power.
And so I very much hope that the Trump administration will not allow that to happen. That's what the Chinese want. There's been some talk that the Trump administration might agree to it. It does not appear, at least at this point, to have been part of the agreement. That's good. We shouldn't be sending - should not - our most advanced technologies into the Chinese market because that'll be bad for our military. And we've got to protect our military.
FADEL: I'm curious what you make of President Trump saying he ordered the Pentagon to start testing U.S. nuclear weapons, quote, "on an equal basis" with Russia and China. I mean, this is a major shift in U.S. policy. What do you make of it when there's been this tension with these other nuclear-armed superpowers?
BURNS: You know, it may be - and there's not a lot of detail in what President Trump said. It may be in response to what the Russians announced last week on a further enhancement of their nuclear weapons program. And it may be that President Trump is trying to get the attention of the Russians and the Chinese that if they go off and begin to violate international agreements, the United States can do that, too. That's an educated guess on my part. I found it certainly was not coincidental that this announcement was made one hour before President Trump and President Xi sat down. You know, both sides try to have leverage over the other. And it must've been an intentional announcement designed to get the attention of the Chinese leadership as well as the Russians.
FADEL: That's Nicholas Burns, who served as U.S. ambassador to China during the Biden administration. Thank you for your time.
BURNS: Thank you, Leila. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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