Does Trump need China to end the war in Iran?
5/13/202630 min
It’s Donald Trump vs President Xi, as the US president is on his first China visit in nearly a decade. A fragile truce exists after both countries came close to a fully blown trade war last year, and now the U.S may need China to help end the war in Iran.
As ever, Donald Trump is hoping a positive personal relationship with Chinese president Xi Jinping will help broker a number of trade deals, and has brought with him a fleet of tech CEOs including Nvidia's Jensen Huang, Tim Cook of Apple, Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX, Larry Fink of BlackRock, as well as other executives from Meta, Visa, JP Morgan, Boeing, Cargill and more.
But hanging over the entire trip is the fragile ceasefire in Iran, which Trump says is on “massive life support”. China is a key ally of Iran and may have greater ability to broker a peace deal, but what would Beijing want from any peace deal, and would the US president be able to resist the opportunity to end a war that’s deeply unpopular with Americans back home?
Back in Washington DC, FBI Director Kash Patel has been facing more questions over reports of allegations of excessive drinking, this time during a congressional hearing over the FBI’s budget. Patel continues to deny the allegations and has sued The Atlantic for defamation over its reporting. Why can’t he shake off the claims, and will Donald Trump take notice?
HOSTS: • Sarah Smith, North America Editor • Anthony Zurcher, North America Correspondent
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This episode was made by George Dabby with Tom Gillett and Grace Reeve. The technical producer was Philip Bull. The series producer is Purvee Pattni. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsAnthony Zurcher· Host0:00
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Speaker 20:03
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Kai Wright0:20
I'm Kai Wright.
Carter Sherman0:21
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Kai Wright0:25
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Carter Sherman0:32
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Kai Wright0:34
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Carter Sherman0:40
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Sarah Smith· Host0:42
[gentle music] Donald Trump has landed in Beijing for his first trip to China since his second term began, and the stakes are pretty high. We've got talks that will be looking at everything from trade, artificial intelligence, relations with Taiwan, but underpinning it all is Donald Trump's really unpopular war in Iran, and that's what's gonna make this trip difficult. He is under pressure at home where voters don't like it. His cabinet members are coming under pressure from Congress about the spending and the strategy. Will Donald Trump ask China to speak to its close friend and ally, Iran, about ending this war, about doing a peace deal? Could China help get the Iranians to the table? And should Donald Trump even accept their help