I'm John Boucher.

This is the new John Boucher show represented by CBS News Radio and continuing my conversation

with the author Josh Rogan of The Washington Post, his new book, Chaos Under Heaven, Trump, Xi, and the Battle for the 21st Century.

This is a careful explication of the evolving Trump administration policy towards China.

It is also an examination of China's understanding or lack of,

of how the U.S. works over the course of our two and a half

centuries. We're a very young nation compared to the Middle Kingdom, very, very young. And our

explanations of ourselves do not necessarily make sense or make clear sense to the Chinese.

The Chinese begin the Trump administration by naming

the thing itself. Our territorial integrity, our sovereignty must not be questioned.

And of course, that's what the Trump people did for four years, and the U.S. will continue.

However, we go to Mar-a-Lago, a wonderful scene that will someday be in an opera.

Donald Trump is serving his chocolate cake to Xi Jinping in a celebratory mood, and he delivers

the message that he's just ordered cruise missiles fired on Syria. At least that's the legend.

I'll go with it, because the question here is, what are the forces

within the Trump administration, that early date that are pulling and pushing the development of the

China policy? We need personalities here. Now, Josh, you made clear that it's not clear that everybody's

in one camp or another. They move back and forth. But I'm going to seize on

plan A. That's Gary Cohn, Steve Mnuchin, and the Wall Street Gang. What did they tell the

president at that time early on in 2017? Right. Well, you have to remember that Donald Trump

campaigned on a message of economic nationalism promises to get our jobs back from China and to stop the Chinese government from screwing over the United States economy. And he used some very heated rhetoric. But when he became president, the policy was actually handed over to the Wall Street guys, Gary Cohn, Steve Mnuchin, and to an extent, Wilbur Ross. Now, they wanted a totally different policy. They wanted to make a trade deal and they wanted to make it quick.

And what better way to do that than to invite Xi Jinping to Mar-a-Lago and get everybody around the table, eat some chocolate cake, and work it out.

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