March 21, 2025 • 24 mins
If US-China relations could be compared to a dish, what would it be? Sichuan hotpot? Sweet and sour pork? In a special episode of the Big Take Asia podcast, a panel of Bloomberg experts examines how the world's superpowers have been slugging it out since Donald Trump started his second stint as US president.
Join host K. Oanh Ha as she sits down with Bloomberg’s John Liu and Nancy Cook, and Opinion’s Shuli Ren and Timothy O’Brien for a discussion recorded live in Singapore.
Further listening:
Xi’s Big Challenge Is Getting People to Spend, Spend, Spend
China’s New Game Plan for Dealing With Trump Tariffs
Watch, from Originals: What Trump's Tariffs Mean for the World Economy
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hi Wanha here, I'm excited to bring you a conversation
we had in Singapore earlier this week in front of
a live audience. This conversation has been edited and condensed.
Hope you enjoy it. Hello everyone, welcome to the special
edition of The Big Take Asia the US China Rivalry
in the Trump Era. It's only been, if you can
(00:30):
believe it, eight weeks since US President Donald Trump took
office again, and we've been confronted with a slew of
executive orders and policy moves that have royaled markets and
stemied businesses. And of course a lot of these moves,
especially those focused on trade, have serious ramifications here in Asia,
(00:51):
and they've dramatically increased this competition between the US and China.
To help us unpack how this is playing out for
the two economic super and the world, please help me
welcome a great panel speakers to the stage. So we've
got with us Nancy Cook, who is senior national political correspondent,
who joins us from Washington, d C. And John lou
(01:14):
who oversees Bloomberg's Greater China coverage based in Beijing. We've
got Tim O'Brien Bloomberg Opinions Senior executive editor based in
New York, and next to him Shuley Wrenn. She's the
Bloomberg Opinion columnist who covers markets in China out of
Hong Kong. Tim, by the way, is also the author
of Trump Nation, The Art of Being the Donald, and
he's fantastic stories that he's been telling us about his
(01:36):
time with Donald. Welcome to Singapore, you guys. Well, since
we're in Singapore and food is such a big element
of the culture, right, we love the Hawker centers. I
think this very first question is appropriate to this place.
If US China relations were dish, what dish would it be?
(01:57):
Let me start with Shuley down there.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
I guess I have to star wars Harpot. Everybody is
at a table. One guest didn't ask everyone else and
turn on the heat, and that you have spices splattered
everywhere on everyone's face. This is what I think of
very appropriate.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Tim.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
I don't know if sweet and sour pork is an
American idea of what a good Chinese dish is, so
I might be stepping on my American toes and bring
this up, but I think sweet and sour pork is
useful because I think a strategy for dealing with Donald
Trump is, whether you're looking at trade or diplomacy, is
are you sweet with him? Or are you sour with him?
And I think people have learned over the years that
(02:37):
you get a little more out of him with sweetness
than with being sour, even though he gives other countries
and diplomats and investors a lot of reasons to be sour.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Very nice, thank you, very tasty insights. I think this
is also a good time to take you behind the
scenes of how we produce the podcast every week. So
we're going to cue up the music. Let's go. Welcome
to the Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm Wanha.
Every week we take you inside some of the world's
(03:07):
biggest and most powerful economies and the markets, tycoons and
businesses that drive this ever shifting region. Today in the show,
live from Singapore, the US China rivalry in the Trump era.
How are Trump's policies playing out in Asia? And is
the US creating a vacuum for power and influence on
the world stage that allows China to step up? Nancy,
(03:33):
I want to start with you to get some perspective
because you have sat down with Donald Trump in mar
A Lago for a one on one interview, and you've
covered him since twenty fifteen. What's different this time around,
you think when it comes to the US China relationship
and rivalry.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
So I think President Trump this time is a much
more sort of self assured and confident leader than he
was when he first came into office. He has a
much better understanding of the levers of power in the
United States and how to use them. And I think
people have been surprised that he is acting and moving
so quickly. I think he has very firmly held beliefs
(04:10):
on things like trade, and then is more ideologically flexible
on things like what the Chinese relationship looks like. Ultimately,
what I'm watching, particularly in China is that I still
think he has He always likes to have a team
of rivals around him a little bit on different policy areas.
So there's sort of advisors, economic advisors competing to have
his ear on trade, and they have competing agendas. And
(04:32):
the same is true of foreign policy. There is not
one person that's going to be in charge of setting
the course for what the US China relationship looks like
there's different foreign policy people competing, whether that's the Secretary
of State Marco Rubio or the National Security Advisor of
Mike Waltz. And so everybody is trying to jockey and
find their place, and that will be very influential as
they think about how to approach China and whatever they're
(04:55):
going to do there.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Yeah, and I think that's also a great starting point
to also talk about itself. And I mean, if Trump
is different this time around, how is she president? She
also different?
Speaker 5 (05:05):
The difference now is president She and China are in
a different position. The economy is in a weaker position,
there are more headwinds, there's the property market. So I
think Beijing is trying to act in a more considered way,
where maybe in the first term there was wolf warrior diplomacy.
I think there is an effort to be more measured
(05:27):
in its response. I mean, the ultimate question that I
think everybody in Beijing is trying to figure out is
what does President Trump want?
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah, certainly that's what we've seen so far. Tim in DC,
in New York in the US, do people understand what
Trump is trying to achieve? I mean, you spent time
with him. What is a sense of the endgame here
from what we've seen so far.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
You know, it was interesting, Juan, when you were giving
the introduction and you said, it's only been eight weeks,
but it seems like eight years. Because I think that's
a universal reaction to this, for flurry of activity from Trump,
wherever you are, and I think for people who are
feeling confused about it, or threatened by it, or just
wondering where it's headed. I think it's useful to try
(06:11):
to put all of that in context. A meaningful portion
of it is performative. Trump prides himself on being a
man of action and a disruptor. He is typically not.
He doesn't put his hands on the steering wheel. His
trade policies are not coming from a sophisticated place, that
is not coming from an understanding of how markets or
(06:31):
economies or business growth develop. It is a blunt tool
that he thinks he can use to repatriate manufacturing back
to the United States.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Well, we've seen certainly a lot of zigzagging on trade
and tariffs, so of course were the first thing that
Trump jumped on, and Trump is now talking about imposing
broad reciprocal tariffs and additional sector specific tariffs April second.
That's just a few weeks away. Truly, when you look
at this through China's lens, I mean, Trump is obviously
using what some people call this weaponized uncertainty right to
(07:05):
bring businesses to closer to what he wants. Is China
buying any of that?
Speaker 3 (07:11):
I think China has realized that the US Trump is
serious about rebalancing the economy. I mean, before it worked
very well, right, US is the big consumer, China is
the big producer. China sells products into the US and
then with the trade surplus day in turn by US treasures.
It worked very well. And Trump just doesn't want that.
He wants the US society to be more producers based.
(07:34):
And for China, they have realized that is done deal,
and what they're trying to do these days is to
turn China into a more consumer based economy. We all
know Chinese consumers don't spend, right, and they're trying to
encourage consumers to spend or if they still try to
produce and sell, they will try to sell to the
global self. So that's what they've been trying to do.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
But in the end, can these stear ups really break
Chinese grip on manufacturing at this point truly.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
You know, there was no doubt China was a manufacturing powerhouse.
You look at like all the ev makers bid this year,
they're putting the autonomous driving technology into the cards without
raising price. It's not just the price point. It's not
that Chinese products are cheap, they're just more useful. But
the narrative a year or two ago was like, basically,
(08:23):
there is a new technological upgrade called AI, and the
China is being locked out. So the next decade forward,
China will.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Not get that.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
And what we're seeing with deep Seek is that actually
China is not being locked down.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
And then it's not just AI.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
They're talking also about robotics, bringing AI features into robotics,
and I think US has a lot of things to
catch up on. And also like a lot of Chinese
companies think that this is a great opportunity. That Trump
is distracted and unfocused, and Elon Musk is also in focused.
I mean does he even run Tesla anymore? Right? And
(08:58):
BID is coming in. Shall me used to be a
Spark film maker and now they are making pretty high
end electric vehicles and the smartphones. They are taking on
Tesla and the Apple, so a lot of Chinese companies
actually think this is an opportunity. So then tim is
this whole focus on bringing back manufacturing to the US.
Is that a bit shortsighted?
Speaker 4 (09:20):
I mean, I think when you ask about what's his endgame,
has this mercant dealist view of how economies function and
how political power is wielded. You know, I think it's
always a mistake to talk about what Trump's strategy is
because he's not a strategic thinker. He's emotional, he's visceral,
but he has very clear goals and I think essentially
what they are right now is an economic hegemony for
(09:41):
the US and political hegemony for himself. So I think
one of the reasons he's dangerous politically in the United
States is he's trying to undermine institutions in the US
that would be checks on his own political hegemony, the courts,
the media, universities, is political opponents. And then he've views
political agemony as the US having its own defined sphere
(10:01):
of influence that is essentially the Americas, and he doesn't
want Europe or China interfering with that, and so he
will latch onto any tools that allow him to get there.
And then I think, you know, in terms of Trump himself,
he enjoys creating chaos because it keeps his audience and
his opponents back on their heels, and it allows him
to be in control of the narrative. I've covered Trump
(10:23):
since nineteen ninety in various forms, and I was with
him at mar A Lago once. We golfed together and
we came off the course and he had a brand
new yellow Ferrari in the driveway, and he looked at
me and he said, do you want to go for
a ride in it together? And I said sure. So
we hop in the car and it had a paddle
shifters on the steering wheel that he didn't know how
to use. So he was grinding the gears out on
(10:45):
the car, on this four hundred and fifty thousand dollars
car as we drove to downtown Palm Beach, and we
pulled up to a stoplight and the windows of the
car were all dark, and so no one could see
who was in the car. And when we stopped at
the stoplight, he goes, watch this. Trump said to me,
watch this, and then he put the windows down, and
everyone on the sidewalk stopped and pointed at the car
and said, look, it's Donald Trump. And then he put
(11:06):
the windows back up, and he looked at me and
he said, isn't that cool? And this is what he's
doing with the world right now. He's essentially using the
United States as like a giant ferrari, and he's pulling
up to these various situations and putting the windows down,
whether it's berating Zelenski in the Oval office, or courting
Putin or embracing tariffs.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Certainly keeping us busy in the news business. I want
to talk about the markets real quick, because the US
doc market's been sinking in reaction to tariffs and recession concerns. Meanwhile,
you've got China's market staying strong. Analysts are talking about
what they call a she put, this idea that the
Chinese government is going to do everything it can to
achieve this five percent growth target. There's certainly no talk
(11:49):
of a Trump put at the moment. What are the
reactions on both sides of the Pacific telling us about
what investors are thinking and feeling.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
The US businesses are panic gaing right now. I bet
you know a number of US companies, everyone from McDonald's
that makes their French fries and canola oil that comes
from Canada to the big US automakers. They're calling the
White House flipping out about the tariffs. I mean, the
stock market did so well at the beginning of the
first seven weeks, let's say, or six weeks, and all
(12:20):
that wealth has been erased already. And the other thing
that's changed from last time is that Republicans on the
Hill just really have acquiesced him entirely and are very
afraid to publicly criticize him. So I think that what
will happen is if the stock market continues to slide
and we do seem like we're headed towards a recession,
then I think he will be less popular among Republicans,
(12:43):
among donors, among businesses, and then maybe he will, of
course correct. But he is really full steam ahead right now.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
This must be so hard to plan at this point
when you've got such erratic news coming out of the
White House and erratic moves. Can businesses really plan at.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
The no, And that is the message that they're telling
the White House. But part of the problem is that's
sort of unclear who is totally in charge with the
US China sort of strategy. The same is true on
economics and tariffs. There are a number of Trump advisors
and cabinet members who have their hands in tariffs, and
so it's just been a real sort of toss up
(13:20):
about what happens with this policy.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
So this unpredictability. Can you really invest or build plant
and equipment if you can't have a five year plan
because he's knocking you back on your feet every week
with a different policy position. That's going to, I think
be a present factor for quite a while, and I
don't think the press or the business community will regulate that.
As a deal maker, he's in charge of these processes.
(13:43):
He has never been a great deal maker historically. In
his business career, he presided over six corporate bankruptcies. He
almost went personally bankrupt, but his father bailed him out
before that happened. And within the business community in the
United States, he was regarded as a cartoon character and
routinely got taken to the clean by better deal makers.
Robert bass on the sale of the Plaza hotel. You
(14:04):
could go on and on down a whole list of deals.
But he's had this myth because of the Apprentice, that
he can fix complicated situations, that he's got the analytic
and intuitive skills to do that, and he's lacked them
since he was seven.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
After the break, the consequences of the Trump era on Asia,
will Asian economies become collateral damage in the wake of
the trade war, and how can China capitalize on this moment?
(14:43):
The ramifications of a US China trade war go beyond
just these two superpowers. And while Asia isn't directly targeted
by the latest US tariffs, the region is very trade dependent.
I asked our panel about what the impact would be
on the region. Here's Bloomberg's shulely Ren.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Again, Singapore has done very well because of China's capital
offlow in the last couple of years tremendously. I think
a Viennam like especially North Vietnam, has been doing very
well because it's a very natural China plus one destination
right like it's very close to mainland China's industry catalog.
And then Vietnamese people are hard working and entrepreneurial and educated.
(15:23):
But I do feel that countries like Vietnam had to
stay under Trump's radar because Vietnam believe or not, runs
the third and largest trade deficit with the US after
Mexico and China. So one day, if Trump wakes up
and say, wait a minute, you're using Vietnam to explore
your stuff into US, then I think Vietnam just has
to be very careful.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Nervous times, certainly for everyone. I want to pivot to
foreign policy. Trump has imposed tariffs on North American neighbors.
He had a shouting match with Ukrainian President Voladimir Zelinski
in the Oval Office. He's threatening tariffs on Europe. These
are the traditional allies of the US. All of that,
of course, must be having a very chilling effect for
America's friends here in Asia, from Taiwan to South Korea
(16:06):
to Japan. And I want to ask you, do you
think she sees this as an opportunity, especially here in Asia,
but around the world. How can China capitalize on this
moment when the US is being erratic, turning its back
on friends and allies.
Speaker 5 (16:23):
I think Beijing sees this as an opportunity to advance
its interests around the world. If you listen to Chinese
officials now, they want the world to see Beijing or
see China as an anchor of stability in a chaotic
world as a result of American and Trump administration policies.
And it sounds like the administration has taken its eyes
(16:47):
off the ball a little bit, like it seems like
there's so much else going on. And if that is
the case, then yeah, then she has an opportunity, right
If the US is too busy thinking about Russia or
the Middle East, then China will have more room to
do things and to try and advance its own interests.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
I also think that as Trump sheds sort of conventional
allies in Europe or all these different places, there's going
to be like a whole new reordering of global superpowers.
And I think that presents an opportunity for China, don't
you think so? Or maybe not.
Speaker 5 (17:21):
Someone described the situation to me as Trump is digging
the world all the pieces and throwing them up in
the air, and everybody's trying to pick things up now.
And this person said, China's going to end up picking
up more pieces than it had before he got thrown up.
I think there's a really good chance that will happen.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
And Trump, also, just to add it quickly, is an isolationist.
He does not think that the US needs to police
the world. He really wants to focus on stuff at home.
When I interviewed him at mar A Lago, you know,
his comments on Taiwan were really some of the most
striking ones in the interview. We sat with him for
an hour and a half and he was basically like,
(17:56):
what has Taiwan done for the US lately? He said
that he was like, I don't see what they're doing
for us. You know, they've stolen our jobs, Like why
should we protect them? And I think you know what
we're seeing happening with Ukraine and sort of his unwillingness
to defend Ukraine or pull back intelligence there, pull back money.
If I were living in Taiwan, I would be fairly
(18:18):
freaked out.
Speaker 5 (18:20):
Taiwan's Defense minister, right after the blow up in the
Oval office with President Zelenski, had this quote I thought
was really interesting and I'm paraphrasing, but essentially said, we
realize that when talking with the US, you cannot discuss
values with the US without also addressing national interests, which
(18:42):
is like very different from what Taiwan's officials were saying
during the Biden administration, which was all about shared.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
Values you know, I remember this conversation I want to
here with that screenwriter about his process, and he said
he would write scenes out on index cards, throw them
into the middle of the floor, and then rearrange them
to see what works. And that's essentially Trump's foreign policy.
And the danger with that is I have to believe
China and Russia are shocked at how much progress they've
made over the last two months without having after decades,
(19:12):
decades of strategically and economically and militarily trying to find
ways to get around the US or supersede the US,
and Trump has just walked up in a few short
weeks and delivered to them on a platter. But it
also isn't a sophisticated understanding of what we all get
when we have shared defenses, which it creates stability, it
creates economic opportunity, It allows people to spend domestically in
(19:36):
their economies on things other than defense, and it encourages
integration that is safer and more prosperous for the world.
And that's what's informing his defenestration of USAID, because he
doesn't understand how American soft power functions in the world.
And these come from hard won lessons about how you
successfully achieve peace and prosperity, and he grew up. John
(19:57):
and I were talking on less earlier. His father made
his fortune building subsidized housing for working class Americans, and
he ended up cheating the federal government during the nineteen
forties and fifties, and he got kicked out of that program.
And then he did a similar thing in New York State,
and he was getting funds from New York State for
housing development, and he did the same thing. He was overbilling.
(20:19):
He was creating faith companies, and he got kicked out
of the New York State programs. And he essentially resigned
after that or retired rather from building. But within the family,
they never said Dad got in trouble because he was
dealing from the government. What they said was the government
came and took Dad's properties away. The government came and
took his candy away. And that informs Trump's view of
(20:41):
emigration and informs Trump's view of foreign policy. It's beware,
someone's going to come and take things away from you,
and if you don't protect those things, you're a sucker
and you will be ripped off. And the only way
to do that is to isolate and put walls up
and defend yourself. And that's a perilous calcil in the
world we live in.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
We're really talking about re ordering of alliances and friendships
and coalitions. Right at this point, since we don't have
much time left, I wonder if we can just stare
into an imaginary crystal ball. Right, we're twenty twenty nine,
four years from now, Right, what does the world look like,
and Asian in particular, four years after Trump?
Speaker 3 (21:23):
I would just talk about the development of an economy
after World War Two in Asia. The economies that have
done very well are mostly driven by export, right, export
oriented economy. So how do the rest of the Asian
economies that have now reached the upper middle income level
become rich themselves? They have to think of a model
(21:45):
that's other than exports.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
I think there's a happy and a sad answer to that.
And I'd hate to end on a sad note for everybody,
but I'll start with the sad and then go to
the happy. The sad note is that I think what
you're seeing around isolationism and predation continues on that, and
we have a world in which people have armed up
and trading sufferers and diplomacy suffers, and again we're in
(22:08):
an earlier century with the fallout all that entails. I
think the happy outcome is that people understand why it's
important to stand up for institutions and values and processes
that we need to have civilized societies and push back
against that. But I think we're on a knife edge.
(22:28):
I think we are in a very historically perilous place
right now.
Speaker 5 (22:32):
I think Asia will be more Chinese, like I think
you're going to have Chinese electric cars and lots of
markets around Asia. I think you'll have people in Asia
using deep seek and Chinese Ai. And then I think
when people travel from Singapore to New York, they'll have
to get like completely different devices because none of those
things will exist in the US. I think Europe is
(22:53):
really hard to read at the moment where that goes.
But I do feel like this four years will see
China being more of fluential in Asia.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
I think in four years it will be like Russia,
China and the US sort of competing against one another
and then sometimes cutting deals with each other, but also
trying to sort of woo either through force potentially in
Russia's case, or Trump with Greenland or the Panama Canal
sort of competing with one another, but also trying to
select new allies or new territories, each to their own side.
(23:25):
And I think those will be the three accesses that
I'll be watching.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Yeah, certainly a new world order they were seeing forming
right now. With that, I want to thank my wonderful panelists.
Thank you for your lovely and insightful thoughts. I think
with that we're going to call it a rap And
if you enjoy this discussion, please subscribe to The Big
Take Asia. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts,
(23:51):
and we'll see you next week. This is The Big
Take Asia from Bloomberg News.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
I'm wan Ha.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
This episode was produced by Young Young and Naomi. It
was edited by Grace Jennings, ed Quist, Patti Hirsch, and
John Leu. It was fact checked by Naomi and mixed
and sound designed by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Hugia. Our
senior producer is Naomi Shaven. Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso.
Our executive producer is Nicole Miemsterboer. Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's
(24:23):
head of Podcasts. Thanks for listening. See you next time
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hi Wanha here, I'm excited to bring you a conversation
we had in Singapore earlier this week in front of
a live audience. This conversation has been edited and condensed.
Hope you enjoy it. Hello everyone, welcome to the special
edition of The Big Take Asia the US China Rivalry
in the Trump Era. It's only been, if you can
(00:30):
believe it, eight weeks since US President Donald Trump took
office again, and we've been confronted with a slew of
executive orders and policy moves that have royaled markets and
stemied businesses. And of course a lot of these moves,
especially those focused on trade, have serious ramifications here in Asia,
(00:51):
and they've dramatically increased this competition between the US and China.
To help us unpack how this is playing out for
the two economic super and the world, please help me
welcome a great panel speakers to the stage. So we've
got with us Nancy Cook, who is senior national political correspondent,
who joins us from Washington, d C. And John lou
(01:14):
who oversees Bloomberg's Greater China coverage based in Beijing. We've
got Tim O'Brien Bloomberg Opinions Senior executive editor based in
New York, and next to him Shuley Wrenn. She's the
Bloomberg Opinion columnist who covers markets in China out of
Hong Kong. Tim, by the way, is also the author
of Trump Nation, The Art of Being the Donald, and
he's fantastic stories that he's been telling us about his
(01:36):
time with Donald. Welcome to Singapore, you guys. Well, since
we're in Singapore and food is such a big element
of the culture, right, we love the Hawker centers. I
think this very first question is appropriate to this place.
If US China relations were dish, what dish would it be?
(01:57):
Let me start with Shuley down there.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
I guess I have to star wars Harpot. Everybody is
at a table. One guest didn't ask everyone else and
turn on the heat, and that you have spices splattered
everywhere on everyone's face. This is what I think of
very appropriate.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Tim.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
I don't know if sweet and sour pork is an
American idea of what a good Chinese dish is, so
I might be stepping on my American toes and bring
this up, but I think sweet and sour pork is
useful because I think a strategy for dealing with Donald
Trump is, whether you're looking at trade or diplomacy, is
are you sweet with him? Or are you sour with him?
And I think people have learned over the years that
(02:37):
you get a little more out of him with sweetness
than with being sour, even though he gives other countries
and diplomats and investors a lot of reasons to be sour.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Very nice, thank you, very tasty insights. I think this
is also a good time to take you behind the
scenes of how we produce the podcast every week. So
we're going to cue up the music. Let's go. Welcome
to the Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm Wanha.
Every week we take you inside some of the world's
(03:07):
biggest and most powerful economies and the markets, tycoons and
businesses that drive this ever shifting region. Today in the show,
live from Singapore, the US China rivalry in the Trump era.
How are Trump's policies playing out in Asia? And is
the US creating a vacuum for power and influence on
the world stage that allows China to step up? Nancy,
(03:33):
I want to start with you to get some perspective
because you have sat down with Donald Trump in mar
A Lago for a one on one interview, and you've
covered him since twenty fifteen. What's different this time around,
you think when it comes to the US China relationship
and rivalry.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
So I think President Trump this time is a much
more sort of self assured and confident leader than he
was when he first came into office. He has a
much better understanding of the levers of power in the
United States and how to use them. And I think
people have been surprised that he is acting and moving
so quickly. I think he has very firmly held beliefs
(04:10):
on things like trade, and then is more ideologically flexible
on things like what the Chinese relationship looks like. Ultimately,
what I'm watching, particularly in China is that I still
think he has He always likes to have a team
of rivals around him a little bit on different policy areas.
So there's sort of advisors, economic advisors competing to have
his ear on trade, and they have competing agendas. And
(04:32):
the same is true of foreign policy. There is not
one person that's going to be in charge of setting
the course for what the US China relationship looks like
there's different foreign policy people competing, whether that's the Secretary
of State Marco Rubio or the National Security Advisor of
Mike Waltz. And so everybody is trying to jockey and
find their place, and that will be very influential as
they think about how to approach China and whatever they're
(04:55):
going to do there.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Yeah, and I think that's also a great starting point
to also talk about itself. And I mean, if Trump
is different this time around, how is she president? She
also different?
Speaker 5 (05:05):
The difference now is president She and China are in
a different position. The economy is in a weaker position,
there are more headwinds, there's the property market. So I
think Beijing is trying to act in a more considered way,
where maybe in the first term there was wolf warrior diplomacy.
I think there is an effort to be more measured
(05:27):
in its response. I mean, the ultimate question that I
think everybody in Beijing is trying to figure out is
what does President Trump want?
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah, certainly that's what we've seen so far. Tim in DC,
in New York in the US, do people understand what
Trump is trying to achieve? I mean, you spent time
with him. What is a sense of the endgame here
from what we've seen so far.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
You know, it was interesting, Juan, when you were giving
the introduction and you said, it's only been eight weeks,
but it seems like eight years. Because I think that's
a universal reaction to this, for flurry of activity from Trump,
wherever you are, and I think for people who are
feeling confused about it, or threatened by it, or just
wondering where it's headed. I think it's useful to try
(06:11):
to put all of that in context. A meaningful portion
of it is performative. Trump prides himself on being a
man of action and a disruptor. He is typically not.
He doesn't put his hands on the steering wheel. His
trade policies are not coming from a sophisticated place, that
is not coming from an understanding of how markets or
(06:31):
economies or business growth develop. It is a blunt tool
that he thinks he can use to repatriate manufacturing back
to the United States.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Well, we've seen certainly a lot of zigzagging on trade
and tariffs, so of course were the first thing that
Trump jumped on, and Trump is now talking about imposing
broad reciprocal tariffs and additional sector specific tariffs April second.
That's just a few weeks away. Truly, when you look
at this through China's lens, I mean, Trump is obviously
using what some people call this weaponized uncertainty right to
(07:05):
bring businesses to closer to what he wants. Is China
buying any of that?
Speaker 3 (07:11):
I think China has realized that the US Trump is
serious about rebalancing the economy. I mean, before it worked
very well, right, US is the big consumer, China is
the big producer. China sells products into the US and
then with the trade surplus day in turn by US treasures.
It worked very well. And Trump just doesn't want that.
He wants the US society to be more producers based.
(07:34):
And for China, they have realized that is done deal,
and what they're trying to do these days is to
turn China into a more consumer based economy. We all
know Chinese consumers don't spend, right, and they're trying to
encourage consumers to spend or if they still try to
produce and sell, they will try to sell to the
global self. So that's what they've been trying to do.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
But in the end, can these stear ups really break
Chinese grip on manufacturing at this point truly.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
You know, there was no doubt China was a manufacturing powerhouse.
You look at like all the ev makers bid this year,
they're putting the autonomous driving technology into the cards without
raising price. It's not just the price point. It's not
that Chinese products are cheap, they're just more useful. But
the narrative a year or two ago was like, basically,
(08:23):
there is a new technological upgrade called AI, and the
China is being locked out. So the next decade forward,
China will.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Not get that.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
And what we're seeing with deep Seek is that actually
China is not being locked down.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
And then it's not just AI.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
They're talking also about robotics, bringing AI features into robotics,
and I think US has a lot of things to
catch up on. And also like a lot of Chinese
companies think that this is a great opportunity. That Trump
is distracted and unfocused, and Elon Musk is also in focused.
I mean does he even run Tesla anymore? Right? And
(08:58):
BID is coming in. Shall me used to be a
Spark film maker and now they are making pretty high
end electric vehicles and the smartphones. They are taking on
Tesla and the Apple, so a lot of Chinese companies
actually think this is an opportunity. So then tim is
this whole focus on bringing back manufacturing to the US.
Is that a bit shortsighted?
Speaker 4 (09:20):
I mean, I think when you ask about what's his endgame,
has this mercant dealist view of how economies function and
how political power is wielded. You know, I think it's
always a mistake to talk about what Trump's strategy is
because he's not a strategic thinker. He's emotional, he's visceral,
but he has very clear goals and I think essentially
what they are right now is an economic hegemony for
(09:41):
the US and political hegemony for himself. So I think
one of the reasons he's dangerous politically in the United
States is he's trying to undermine institutions in the US
that would be checks on his own political hegemony, the courts,
the media, universities, is political opponents. And then he've views
political agemony as the US having its own defined sphere
(10:01):
of influence that is essentially the Americas, and he doesn't
want Europe or China interfering with that, and so he
will latch onto any tools that allow him to get there.
And then I think, you know, in terms of Trump himself,
he enjoys creating chaos because it keeps his audience and
his opponents back on their heels, and it allows him
to be in control of the narrative. I've covered Trump
(10:23):
since nineteen ninety in various forms, and I was with
him at mar A Lago once. We golfed together and
we came off the course and he had a brand
new yellow Ferrari in the driveway, and he looked at
me and he said, do you want to go for
a ride in it together? And I said sure. So
we hop in the car and it had a paddle
shifters on the steering wheel that he didn't know how
to use. So he was grinding the gears out on
(10:45):
the car, on this four hundred and fifty thousand dollars
car as we drove to downtown Palm Beach, and we
pulled up to a stoplight and the windows of the
car were all dark, and so no one could see
who was in the car. And when we stopped at
the stoplight, he goes, watch this. Trump said to me,
watch this, and then he put the windows down, and
everyone on the sidewalk stopped and pointed at the car
and said, look, it's Donald Trump. And then he put
(11:06):
the windows back up, and he looked at me and
he said, isn't that cool? And this is what he's
doing with the world right now. He's essentially using the
United States as like a giant ferrari, and he's pulling
up to these various situations and putting the windows down,
whether it's berating Zelenski in the Oval office, or courting
Putin or embracing tariffs.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Certainly keeping us busy in the news business. I want
to talk about the markets real quick, because the US
doc market's been sinking in reaction to tariffs and recession concerns. Meanwhile,
you've got China's market staying strong. Analysts are talking about
what they call a she put, this idea that the
Chinese government is going to do everything it can to
achieve this five percent growth target. There's certainly no talk
(11:49):
of a Trump put at the moment. What are the
reactions on both sides of the Pacific telling us about
what investors are thinking and feeling.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
The US businesses are panic gaing right now. I bet
you know a number of US companies, everyone from McDonald's
that makes their French fries and canola oil that comes
from Canada to the big US automakers. They're calling the
White House flipping out about the tariffs. I mean, the
stock market did so well at the beginning of the
first seven weeks, let's say, or six weeks, and all
(12:20):
that wealth has been erased already. And the other thing
that's changed from last time is that Republicans on the
Hill just really have acquiesced him entirely and are very
afraid to publicly criticize him. So I think that what
will happen is if the stock market continues to slide
and we do seem like we're headed towards a recession,
then I think he will be less popular among Republicans,
(12:43):
among donors, among businesses, and then maybe he will, of
course correct. But he is really full steam ahead right now.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
This must be so hard to plan at this point
when you've got such erratic news coming out of the
White House and erratic moves. Can businesses really plan at.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
The no, And that is the message that they're telling
the White House. But part of the problem is that's
sort of unclear who is totally in charge with the
US China sort of strategy. The same is true on
economics and tariffs. There are a number of Trump advisors
and cabinet members who have their hands in tariffs, and
so it's just been a real sort of toss up
(13:20):
about what happens with this policy.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
So this unpredictability. Can you really invest or build plant
and equipment if you can't have a five year plan
because he's knocking you back on your feet every week
with a different policy position. That's going to, I think
be a present factor for quite a while, and I
don't think the press or the business community will regulate that.
As a deal maker, he's in charge of these processes.
(13:43):
He has never been a great deal maker historically. In
his business career, he presided over six corporate bankruptcies. He
almost went personally bankrupt, but his father bailed him out
before that happened. And within the business community in the
United States, he was regarded as a cartoon character and
routinely got taken to the clean by better deal makers.
Robert bass on the sale of the Plaza hotel. You
(14:04):
could go on and on down a whole list of deals.
But he's had this myth because of the Apprentice, that
he can fix complicated situations, that he's got the analytic
and intuitive skills to do that, and he's lacked them
since he was seven.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
After the break, the consequences of the Trump era on Asia,
will Asian economies become collateral damage in the wake of
the trade war, and how can China capitalize on this moment?
(14:43):
The ramifications of a US China trade war go beyond
just these two superpowers. And while Asia isn't directly targeted
by the latest US tariffs, the region is very trade dependent.
I asked our panel about what the impact would be
on the region. Here's Bloomberg's shulely Ren.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Again, Singapore has done very well because of China's capital
offlow in the last couple of years tremendously. I think
a Viennam like especially North Vietnam, has been doing very
well because it's a very natural China plus one destination
right like it's very close to mainland China's industry catalog.
And then Vietnamese people are hard working and entrepreneurial and educated.
(15:23):
But I do feel that countries like Vietnam had to
stay under Trump's radar because Vietnam believe or not, runs
the third and largest trade deficit with the US after
Mexico and China. So one day, if Trump wakes up
and say, wait a minute, you're using Vietnam to explore
your stuff into US, then I think Vietnam just has
to be very careful.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Nervous times, certainly for everyone. I want to pivot to
foreign policy. Trump has imposed tariffs on North American neighbors.
He had a shouting match with Ukrainian President Voladimir Zelinski
in the Oval Office. He's threatening tariffs on Europe. These
are the traditional allies of the US. All of that,
of course, must be having a very chilling effect for
America's friends here in Asia, from Taiwan to South Korea
(16:06):
to Japan. And I want to ask you, do you
think she sees this as an opportunity, especially here in Asia,
but around the world. How can China capitalize on this
moment when the US is being erratic, turning its back
on friends and allies.
Speaker 5 (16:23):
I think Beijing sees this as an opportunity to advance
its interests around the world. If you listen to Chinese
officials now, they want the world to see Beijing or
see China as an anchor of stability in a chaotic
world as a result of American and Trump administration policies.
And it sounds like the administration has taken its eyes
(16:47):
off the ball a little bit, like it seems like
there's so much else going on. And if that is
the case, then yeah, then she has an opportunity, right
If the US is too busy thinking about Russia or
the Middle East, then China will have more room to
do things and to try and advance its own interests.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
I also think that as Trump sheds sort of conventional
allies in Europe or all these different places, there's going
to be like a whole new reordering of global superpowers.
And I think that presents an opportunity for China, don't
you think so? Or maybe not.
Speaker 5 (17:21):
Someone described the situation to me as Trump is digging
the world all the pieces and throwing them up in
the air, and everybody's trying to pick things up now.
And this person said, China's going to end up picking
up more pieces than it had before he got thrown up.
I think there's a really good chance that will happen.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
And Trump, also, just to add it quickly, is an isolationist.
He does not think that the US needs to police
the world. He really wants to focus on stuff at home.
When I interviewed him at mar A Lago, you know,
his comments on Taiwan were really some of the most
striking ones in the interview. We sat with him for
an hour and a half and he was basically like,
(17:56):
what has Taiwan done for the US lately? He said
that he was like, I don't see what they're doing
for us. You know, they've stolen our jobs, Like why
should we protect them? And I think you know what
we're seeing happening with Ukraine and sort of his unwillingness
to defend Ukraine or pull back intelligence there, pull back money.
If I were living in Taiwan, I would be fairly
(18:18):
freaked out.
Speaker 5 (18:20):
Taiwan's Defense minister, right after the blow up in the
Oval office with President Zelenski, had this quote I thought
was really interesting and I'm paraphrasing, but essentially said, we
realize that when talking with the US, you cannot discuss
values with the US without also addressing national interests, which
(18:42):
is like very different from what Taiwan's officials were saying
during the Biden administration, which was all about shared.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
Values you know, I remember this conversation I want to
here with that screenwriter about his process, and he said
he would write scenes out on index cards, throw them
into the middle of the floor, and then rearrange them
to see what works. And that's essentially Trump's foreign policy.
And the danger with that is I have to believe
China and Russia are shocked at how much progress they've
made over the last two months without having after decades,
(19:12):
decades of strategically and economically and militarily trying to find
ways to get around the US or supersede the US,
and Trump has just walked up in a few short
weeks and delivered to them on a platter. But it
also isn't a sophisticated understanding of what we all get
when we have shared defenses, which it creates stability, it
creates economic opportunity, It allows people to spend domestically in
(19:36):
their economies on things other than defense, and it encourages
integration that is safer and more prosperous for the world.
And that's what's informing his defenestration of USAID, because he
doesn't understand how American soft power functions in the world.
And these come from hard won lessons about how you
successfully achieve peace and prosperity, and he grew up. John
(19:57):
and I were talking on less earlier. His father made
his fortune building subsidized housing for working class Americans, and
he ended up cheating the federal government during the nineteen
forties and fifties, and he got kicked out of that program.
And then he did a similar thing in New York State,
and he was getting funds from New York State for
housing development, and he did the same thing. He was overbilling.
(20:19):
He was creating faith companies, and he got kicked out
of the New York State programs. And he essentially resigned
after that or retired rather from building. But within the family,
they never said Dad got in trouble because he was
dealing from the government. What they said was the government
came and took Dad's properties away. The government came and
took his candy away. And that informs Trump's view of
(20:41):
emigration and informs Trump's view of foreign policy. It's beware,
someone's going to come and take things away from you,
and if you don't protect those things, you're a sucker
and you will be ripped off. And the only way
to do that is to isolate and put walls up
and defend yourself. And that's a perilous calcil in the
world we live in.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
We're really talking about re ordering of alliances and friendships
and coalitions. Right at this point, since we don't have
much time left, I wonder if we can just stare
into an imaginary crystal ball. Right, we're twenty twenty nine,
four years from now, Right, what does the world look like,
and Asian in particular, four years after Trump?
Speaker 3 (21:23):
I would just talk about the development of an economy
after World War Two in Asia. The economies that have
done very well are mostly driven by export, right, export
oriented economy. So how do the rest of the Asian
economies that have now reached the upper middle income level
become rich themselves? They have to think of a model
(21:45):
that's other than exports.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
I think there's a happy and a sad answer to that.
And I'd hate to end on a sad note for everybody,
but I'll start with the sad and then go to
the happy. The sad note is that I think what
you're seeing around isolationism and predation continues on that, and
we have a world in which people have armed up
and trading sufferers and diplomacy suffers, and again we're in
(22:08):
an earlier century with the fallout all that entails. I
think the happy outcome is that people understand why it's
important to stand up for institutions and values and processes
that we need to have civilized societies and push back
against that. But I think we're on a knife edge.
(22:28):
I think we are in a very historically perilous place
right now.
Speaker 5 (22:32):
I think Asia will be more Chinese, like I think
you're going to have Chinese electric cars and lots of
markets around Asia. I think you'll have people in Asia
using deep seek and Chinese Ai. And then I think
when people travel from Singapore to New York, they'll have
to get like completely different devices because none of those
things will exist in the US. I think Europe is
(22:53):
really hard to read at the moment where that goes.
But I do feel like this four years will see
China being more of fluential in Asia.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
I think in four years it will be like Russia,
China and the US sort of competing against one another
and then sometimes cutting deals with each other, but also
trying to sort of woo either through force potentially in
Russia's case, or Trump with Greenland or the Panama Canal
sort of competing with one another, but also trying to
select new allies or new territories, each to their own side.
(23:25):
And I think those will be the three accesses that
I'll be watching.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Yeah, certainly a new world order they were seeing forming
right now. With that, I want to thank my wonderful panelists.
Thank you for your lovely and insightful thoughts. I think
with that we're going to call it a rap And
if you enjoy this discussion, please subscribe to The Big
Take Asia. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts,
(23:51):
and we'll see you next week. This is The Big
Take Asia from Bloomberg News.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
I'm wan Ha.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
This episode was produced by Young Young and Naomi. It
was edited by Grace Jennings, ed Quist, Patti Hirsch, and
John Leu. It was fact checked by Naomi and mixed
and sound designed by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Hugia. Our
senior producer is Naomi Shaven. Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso.
Our executive producer is Nicole Miemsterboer. Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's
(24:23):
head of Podcasts. Thanks for listening. See you next time
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