Mr. Trump goes to Beijing
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR
4.4 • 25.7K Ratings
🗓️ 12 May 2026
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode: voting correspondent Miles Parks, White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram, and senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson.
This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.
Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey there, it's Miles. Just a quick word before we get started today. If the NPR Politics |
| 0:04.9 | podcast is part of your daily routine, make it official on the NPR app. You'll hear about |
| 0:09.5 | every episode the moment it's ready. Just turn on notifications and we will handle the rest. |
| 0:15.1 | See you there. Download the NPR app today. Okay, here's the show. |
| 0:22.2 | Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. |
| 0:26.6 | I'm Deepa Shiveram. I cover the White House. And I'm Mara Liason, senior national political |
| 0:30.9 | correspondent. And today on the show, President Trump is heading to China for a visit that could |
| 0:36.2 | touch on many of the biggest issues facing |
| 0:38.3 | the global economy right now, including the ongoing conflict in Iran and an ongoing |
| 0:42.7 | arms race around artificial intelligence. So, Mara, I want to start with the power dynamic |
| 0:47.5 | between the United States and China, because President Trump is somebody who is keenly aware |
| 0:51.3 | of leverage. How do you think he is heading into this meeting with |
| 0:54.5 | China's leader Xi Jinping? Well, Donald Trump likes to say people either have some cards or they have |
| 1:00.3 | no cards. I would say right now she has more cards than Trump. Trump has been weakened by the war in |
| 1:07.3 | Iran, which is unpopular at home. Donald Trump, in order to prosecute the war on Iran, pulled a lot of U.S. military assets out of the Pacific, leaving the United States's allies, like South Korea, nervous. |
| 1:22.4 | He is very eager, or he seems very eager, to get out of the war because it's causing gas prices |
| 1:28.7 | to go up at home and that's a political problem for his party. Also, the Supreme Court |
| 1:34.0 | stopped him from imposing some really big tariffs on China, which was a point of leverage |
| 1:40.1 | for Trump, but now he has less. And not to mention the fact that she has an almost global |
| 1:47.8 | monopoly on rare earths. And we've seen that come up in the past when Trump put big tariffs on |
| 1:53.4 | China. China said, okay, we won't send you any rare earths, and then Trump back down and lowered the |
| 1:57.7 | tariffs. And one further thing from gas prices being high, it means that |
... |
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