Historian Victor Davis Hanson says that it is Trump who holds all the cards and that China is weak. They have low fertility, a weak energy situation, and are dependent on exports. Trump does not need to ask them for anything.

Liberal media did what they could to weaken Trump both before, during, and after the summit meeting. But their portrayal rests on faulty premises, Davis Hanson says.

President Donald Trump holds “all the cards” in negotiations with Beijing, according to Victor Davis Hanson, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Hanson argued on Friday that the United States’ energy dominance, economy, and advances in artificial intelligence enable Trump to negotiate from a position of strength.

“All the data show that the cards are in Donald Trump’s hands,” Hanson said on “The Ingraham Angle.” “He can be as magnanimous as he wants, but he holds all the cards, and they hold none.”

It is unusual for one side of politics actively to attempt to weaken the country in relation to another hostile great power. But that was what liberal media did, also in Europe. They talked down Trump and the United States.

Hanson also pointed to factors such as China’s declining birth rate, the country’s enormous dependence on foreign oil, and the United States’ success in keeping Beijing’s influence out of the Western Hemisphere as clear signs that Trump holds the upper hand.

“China is not going to be a player. And if it becomes a player, it will be with the permission of the United States,” Hanson said.
He compared current concerns about China with previous global regimes, including earlier American concerns about the Soviet Union and Japan.

“China is merely the latest phase that we are all supposed to be alarmed about, but it will meet the same fate in relation to us as those other so-called superpowers experienced,” Hanson said.

Trump raised the situation of the Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai, who has been sentenced to many years in prison, something he is unlikely to survive. But Xi Jinping turned a deaf ear.

NTB wrote that he was willing to sacrifice Taiwan’s freedom in order to secure China’s assistance against Iran. They quoted from an interview with Bret Baier. But the context produces an entirely different conclusion.

“Nothing has changed. I will say this: I do not want anyone moving towards independence,” Trump told Bret Baier on Fox News. “And, you know, we are supposedly going to travel 15,000 kilometres to wage war. That is not what I want. I want them to calm down. I want China to calm down.”

Trump said that he will call Taiwan’s president regarding the $14 billion arms package. No American president has spoken directly with Taiwan’s leader since 1979 for fear of provoking China’s wrath. Trump says he will do so as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

But Hanson argued that Trump would not abandon support for Taiwan in exchange for China’s assistance in negotiations with Iran.
“They want things from us, but we do not need anything from them,” he said. “And he is not going to abandon Taiwan in order to get help on Iran when he does not need their help.”

https://www.foxnews.com/media/trump-holds-cards-high-stakes-summit-china-says-victor-davis-hanson