As the G20 Summit convenes in Osaka, Hudson experts weigh in on the national security and trade priorities shaping the efforts of U.S. officials this weekend.

Iran may not be a G20 economy, but will be on the minds of many at the Summit. In his latest article for Mosaic Magazine, former National Security Council Director Mike Doran examines Iran’s recent efforts to provoke a military strike from the U.S., and how the potential conflict would play into the hands of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during the G20 Summit:

“The next meeting of G20 takes place in Japan this coming Friday and Saturday, and fears of “chaos” have hardly abated—especially among Europeans, who will constitute fully a quarter of all attendees. The recent European elections saw a significant rise in the power of nationalists who seek to weaken the European Union (EU), leaving its leading representatives, all of whom will be present in Osaka, feeling caught between the hammer of Trump’s America First policies and the anvil of European populism.

Khamenei intends to leverage the fears that haunt these Europeans by raising the specter of war and simultaneously offering a cooperative, multilateral way to exorcise it, namely, by returning America to the JCPOA. His goal is to place Trump’s renunciation of the Iran nuclear deal on the unofficial agenda of the summit, in the hope that it will win a place on the short list of Trump’s major sins against “a rules-based international order,” right up there with the American president’s economic protectionism and his disavowal of the Paris climate accord.

Khamenei’s strategy is as every bit as clever as Xi’s presentation of himself, of all autocrats, as a defender of high internationalism. If it succeeds, it has a good chance of accelerating Iran’s relentless push to obtain nuclear weapons.”

3 Takes on Trump and Xi at G20

Hudson experts on the different dynamics influencing President Trump and Xi's upcoming G20 sideline meeting:

1. Patrick Cronin joins CNN’s Situation Room to discuss the shadow of Kim Jong-Un over the Trump-Xi meeting at G20:

   “Xi and Trump are bargaining for Kim’s affections. But Xi now has got the upper hand. He’s going to have to lever what Kim needs to make a deal with Trump.”

2. Michael Pillsbury appears on Fox Business to discuss China’s trade war tactics in Osaka: 

   “The possibility of something big happening at the G-20 is still there….What I’m concerned about is the Chinese negotiator having his title removed before he came [to G-20] last week. He was before not only "Vice Premier," but also had a special title of "Special Envoy to President Xi Jinping." That means when he agrees to something, he commits President Xi Jinping. They took that away last week, they told us never to say it again. So it implies to me that there is some kind of power struggle going on in Beijing, where the hardliners are taking back things that were agreed to earlier. This is cause for concern. But the basic structure of the talks is intact.”

3. John Lee is quoted in Bloomberg on China’s shifting approach towards U.S. allies and how it will effect the G20 Summit:

   “During my time in government, China became far more willing to threaten and coerce smaller countries, and particularly allies of the U.S.,” said John Lee, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a senior adviser to Australia’s foreign minister from 2016 to 2018. Overt actions against Washington, though, remained taboo. “The Communist Party has a very hierarchical mindset in foreign affairs, and the Americans are the only country above China."

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