Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Situation Report.
Here’s what’s on tap for the day: Trump and Xi share contrasting messages on Taiwan, Latvia’s government gets a shake-up, and Israel vows to sue the New York Times.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping had no shortage of topics to discuss when they met in Beijing on Thursday, the first visit to China by a U.S. president in nearly a decade. But the two sides chose to focus on somewhat different sets of issues in their respective readouts and diverged particularly sharply on the question of Taiwan.
Continued U.S. support for the island, which China claims, loomed large over the bilateral talks largely focused on trade, technology, and the Iran war. According to Beijing’s readout of the meeting, Xi told Trump that “the Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-U.S. relations,” adding that the notion of Taiwanese independence and peace between Taiwan and China “are as irreconcilable as fire and water.” Xi urged “extra caution” from the United States in its handling of Taiwan.
Trump may have over indexed on that caution: The U.S. readout of the meeting did not mention Taiwan at all, with the only strait mentioned being the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. president also ignored a reporter’s question about whether Taiwan was discussed.
Whither weapons? Trump’s strategic silence may be seen as the best-case scenario for China watchers within and outside his administration, considering his mixed messages on Taiwan in the lead-up to the visit.
Trump raised alarm bells ahead of the trip when he repeatedly said he would discuss U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan with Xi, potentially flouting one of the key principles of U.S.-Taiwan relations known as the “Six Assurances” given to Taiwan by former President Ronald Reagan in 1982. The second of those six assurances explicitly states that the United States has “not agreed” to consult with China on arms sales to Taiwan.
Trump also held off on approving a $14 billion weapons package for Taiwan ahead of his China visit, which would be the largest-ever U.S. weapons sale to Taiwan. However, the current record for that sale is also held by this Trump administration, which approved an $11 billion weapons package for Taiwan in December.
The Chinese readout did not mention whether weapons sales were discussed, and the fate of the latest package once Trump makes his way back to Washington remains unclear. In response to a request for comment from the White House, a senior administration official would only tell SitRep that “both sides reiterated their long-stated stance on the issue and everyone understands each other’s position.”
The Taiwanese foreign ministry said in a statement that Taiwan and China “are not subordinate to each other” and that China “has no right to represent Taiwan” on the international stage. “China is currently the only risk to regional peace and stability,” the statement added. “As a responsible member of the international community, Taiwan will continue to work closely with the United States and like-minded countries to jointly safeguard peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and the freedom, openness and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region.”
Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina on Thursday announced her resignation amid a political crisis over a recent incident involving two stray Ukrainian drones that entered the country from Russia and crashed—with one hitting an oil storage facility. Silina fired Defense Minister Andris Spruds over the incident, which added to a growing trend of drone incursions in Baltic countries that has raised concerns about air defense vulnerabilities. Subsequently, Spruds’s Progressive party withdrew its support for Silina’s governing coalition, leading to its collapse.
Also announcing his resignation on Thursday was U.S. Border Patrol chief Michael Banks, who told Fox News that it was “just time” to step down.
What should be high on your radar, if it isn’t already.
Hitchhiker Huang. Trump’s China visit appears to have largely skirted two of the biggest issues in the bilateral relationship between the world’s two largest economies: technology and critical minerals.
Trump was accompanied on his trip by a phalanx of U.S. tech CEOs, including Apple’s Tim Cook and Tesla’s Elon Musk—both of whose companies have strong ties to China. He even picked up Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at a refueling stop in Alaska en route to Beijing, after Huang’s absence from the original roster led to a slew of headlines. The sale of Nvidia’s advanced H200 semiconductor chips in China has been a key bilateral issue.
So far, however, it appears the tech executives were mainly there for the optics. No deals on chips and other technology have yet been forthcoming, taking a back seat to foreshadowed deals on Boeing jets and beef.
The optics of the visit will likely please both leaders, but Xi may emerge slightly happier, said Ali Wyne, a senior research and advocacy advisor on U.S.-China relations at the International Crisis Group.
“Trump will be pleased that he sustained a cordial rapport with Xi and enabled major U.S. companies to strengthen their foothold in China,” Wyne said. “Xi, though, will emerge with a less concrete but more consequential prize. In praising his counterpart so effusively and underscoring his attachment to a ‘G-2’ framing of international affairs, Trump has enthusiastically done what none of his predecessors had thought—or felt compelled—to do: recognize China as a near-peer in the international system.”
(Read more on Trump’s broader softening on China in Rishi’s piece here.)
The Iran war remains in limbo. Despite repeated exchanges of fire since it began more than a month ago, the cease-fire in the Iran war is still limping along. But the United States and Iran aren’t any closer to a deal to end the war, and the stalemate over the Strait of Hormuz continues to inflict major pain on the global economy. John interviewed an expert on cease-fires and conflict mediation for insights on why the U.S.-Iran cease-fire has been so vulnerable from the start. Read their conversation here.
Meanwhile, the war remains unpopular in the United States. A strong majority of Americans (66 percent) don’t think Trump has clearly explained why the United States went to war with Iran, per a new Reuters/Ipsos poll. In spite of this, Congress has been unable to stop the conflict. FP’s Rachel Oswald broke down why that is in a must-read piece this week.
Israel plans to sue the NYT. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday announced that he had “instructed my legal advisers to consider the harshest legal action” against the New York Times and journalist Nicholas Kristof over an article by Kristof alleging that Israeli soldiers, prison guards, interrogators, and settlers have engaged in widespread sexual violence against Palestinians.
Netanyahu accused the Times and Kristof of defaming “the soldiers of Israel” and perpetuating “a blood libel about rape, trying to create a false symmetry between the genocidal terrorists of Hamas and Israel’s valiant soldiers.” The Israeli prime minister said that his government “will fight these lies in the court of public opinion and in the court of law.” The Times has defended Kristof and his piece, stating that “details were extensively fact-checked.”
Local residents carrying their dog leave a damaged residential building following Russian drone and missile strikes in Kyiv on May 14.Roman Pilipey/ AFP via Getty Images
