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Hudson in 5
Last week, President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping negotiated a temporary détente in the trade war between China and the United States, including a pause on Beijing’s critical mineral export restrictions. At Hudson, Congressman Rich McCormick (R-GA) emphasized that the US needs to leverage free-market principles to secure vital tech supply chains like critical minerals and sustain America’s leadership in artificial intelligence.
Watch the event, listen to the podcast, or read the transcript here.
America also faces an ideological challenge at home. Tucker Carlson, whom Trump described as “kooky” when the two disagreed over Iran policy in June, has become a key conduit for antisemitic ideas in the US. But, as Liel Leibovitz explains in First Things, the real goal of Carlson and other right-wing influencers appears to be undermining American optimism while cozying up to the United States’ worst enemies.
The United States’ recent sanctions on two Russian oil giants will help stifle collaboration between Moscow and Beijing and slow Russia’s war machine. But the Trump administration can still do more to force Vladimir Putin to come to the negotiating table. Luke Coffey, Thomas J. Duesterberg, and Can Kasapoğlu lay out 10 steps in a new policy memo.
Amid US-China trade talks, David Feith warns that Chinese car factories in the US could play the role of a “Trojan horse” to make the US auto industry and labor market more vulnerable to Beijing’s economic coercion and political interference.
On the strategic front, China’s nuclear buildup means that America faces two major nuclear adversaries simultaneously. Rebeccah Heinrichs argues that, to better resist nuclear coercion from these adversaries, the US should:
- Let New START expire
- Modernize the US nuclear triad
- Double its order of B-21 bombers
- Accelerate deployment of a nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM‑N)
Before you go . . .
Another dimension of the threat China poses to the US is the Chinese Communist Party’s ambition to subordinate all religions to its totalitarian ideals. Bill Drexel and Grace Drexel argue that the CCP’s latest crackdown, which focused on Zion Church, will backfire. Such crackdowns often strengthen persecuted churches’ networks at home and further tarnish China’s image abroad, they write.
