Last week, Trump travelled to Beijing for a historic two-day summit to meet with President Xi Jinping. From the outside, it appears that this meeting ended with no clear next steps on key foreign policy issues, such as the AI Cold War, the ongoing conflict in Iran, or Trump’s trade wars.
Tom Malinowski joins Jen to help us dissect the many failings of Trump’s diplomatic retreat. China is more than happy to sit back and watch America crumble underneath itself as we deplete our military resources, cut off our own energy stream via the Strait of Hormuz, and struggle with internal political restlessness. Malinowski also discusses the Trump administration’s stance on Iran and what kind of deal could possibly re-open the Strait of Hormuz.
Tom P. Malinowski is a former U.S. Congressman from New Jersey from 2019 to 2023. A Democrat, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor in the Obama administration. Before that, he worked with the National Security Council to help end some of the 20th Century’s bloodiest humanitarian crises, and as the chief advocate for Human Rights Watch, leading a bipartisan effort to end the Bush Administration’s use of torture.
The following transcript has been edited for formatting purposes
Jen Rubin
Hi, this is Jen Rubin, Editor-in-Chief of the Contrarian. We’re delighted to have back Tom Malinowski to talk to us about this summit in China. Welcome, Tom!
Tom Malinowski
Thank you, Jen.
Jen Rubin
I don’t see that Donald Trump got anything. We saw a lot of, supplicant behavior. You’re my best friend, come to the White House, but we didn’t see him actually extract any concessions, any agreements? What do you think went on there?
Tom Malinowski
So, thank goodness, actually. Any real concessions would have come at a ridiculous price that we should not want to pay. Of course, there’s things we don’t know, right? We weren’t in the room And we can’t really trust the people who are in the room, but eventually we’ll learn a little bit more about the substance of the summit. What we did see was the optics of the summit, and that’s not trivial.
So, I woke up this morning, and found a video put out by the White House. Our White House of the United States saying that, basically, America’s back, America’s strength, on display in Beijing, China. And the video was exclusively of Chinese Communist flags flying all over the place, and Chinese troops marching. Just think about that for a second, just how…I don’t even have words to describe what’s going on, it’s so bizarre and weird and parallel universe-y. The White House, the president, is putting out videos of the Chinese military and Chinese communist flags and saying, yay, America.
And so that’s number one. Number two, you mentioned… Oh, you’re my friend. Oh, you’re so big. Oh, you’re so great. Oh, you’re so powerful. Which, of course, Xi Jinping did not reciprocate. But it’s pretty clear, watching the body language, that Trump is just desperate for the president of China, for the leader of China, to reciprocate the praise, to say, oh, no, Mr. Trump, you’re the great man, you’re the great leader. Never happened. And, compare the body language. of how Trump meets with different world leaders. Of course, think about that infamous meeting with Zelensky in which Trump is dressing him down. other leaders of smaller democratic countries coming to the White House. Compare that to his needy behavior, his desperation to get validation from the dictator of China. It’s like Trump has this hierarchy in his mind of power in which America’s not number one. We’re, like, in the middle. And China’s on top. And that, to me, just, you know, as just a patriotic American, I find embarrassing and disturbing.
Jen Rubin
Something that did come out was, some kind of, I think it was described as a warning from the Chinese, that our insistence on supporting Taiwan would lead to conflict. What do you make of that, and what, if anything, has Trump signaled that China might take advantage of?
Tom Malinowski
So, clearly, Taiwan is the number one issue on the mind of Xi Jinping. the Chinese maximum objective for this visit was to give Trump the meaningless things that Trump likes. Give him the red carpet and the banquet and the ballroom and the… you know, he didn’t even actually get praise, right, but just… but just give him this feeling that momentarily he has the reflected power of the Chinese president shining on him. Give him some trinkets.
So we’re gonna buy, you know, maybe buy some more soybeans, buy a few Boeing planes—I’ll come back to that in a second—and in exchange, hopefully extract from Trump a shift in American policy towards Taiwan. Because even a subtle ship would be demoralizing to the people of Taiwan. Again, we don’t know what happened in the meetings, but Trump this morning, our time, did say they spoke extensively about Taiwan, number one. He would not say that America would defend Taiwan. He said that Xi Jinping asked him that same question, will you defend Taiwan? And that he refused To answer the question with Xi Jinping. Who knows if that really happened, right? But that’s what Trump said. And then he added a line along the lines of. But, you know, the last thing we need is to have a war 9,500 miles away.
And I guess he’s right, because we’re currently depleting our military in a war that’s only 7,000 miles away. So, our capacity to fight a war 9,500 miles away to defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion is diminishing every single day. Right. But still, like, the subtle signal I said, well, I really wouldn’t want to fight that war.
Jen Rubin
Right. It’s bizarre that Trump should, in essence, be bragging about not standing up for Taiwan. You would think any other president would have said, yes, we’ve reaffirmed U.S. policy, we’re going to have to, you know, deal with our differences, but he thinks it’s a good thing that he didn’t confront Xi. That seems awfully odd.
Tom Malinowski
It sounds like it, and he’s also the first president for whom everything is negotiable. You know, so past American presidents, yes, you would discuss national security issues like Taiwan. Yes, you would discuss American concerns about dangerous, predatory Chinese behavior. You would do so in order to communicate clearly what our red lines and our values are, so that there’s no misunderstanding between these two superpowers. But you wouldn’t be bargaining our position on those national security issues against something else. You wouldn’t go in saying, well, maybe I’ll shift on Taiwan, or maybe I’ll give you the chips that you need to beat us in the AI race. If you buy some soybeans, if you buy some plains, If you give me, you know, ballroom treatment in the Forbidden City. Like, those things were separate. The Chinese would always try to link them.
You know, they would say, you know, we’ll cooperate with you on climate change. But only if you soften your position on Taiwan. And we’d say, no, totally separate issues. We should cooperate on climate change, because it’s in our mutual interest to do so. But we’re not going to give you something on Taiwan to get that. And so that’s a… that’s a radical shift in how we we approach China. Now, does that mean he gave away the store? I hope not. I hope Marco Rubio was sitting there kicking him under the table whenever it came up, and maybe we got away with, like, a nothing burger of a summit, which would be great, the best possible outcome. But that is the tendency that the Chinese wanted to exploit as much as possible, and it’s scary.
Jen Rubin
And certainly, she has taken the measure of the man, and will conclude what he will from Trump’s to-ing and fro-ing and equivocation and all the rest of it. You know, this summit was supposed to take place earlier. And they postponed it, in part, I think, because Trump thought, oh, I’ll come into China having defeated Iran. Well, he actually came in weaker. And of course, he voluntarily moved assets from Asia to Iran, thereby, again, giving China some of what it wants, which is a military advantage, not that they’re going to use it immediately, but certainly a dominant position vis-a-vis Taiwan.
Is there any understanding that you can see from the administration that keeping an enormous fleet in the Middle East to do, I’m not sure what. Has depleted our leverage, our power, our influence in other places in the world?
Tom Malinowski
No, that’s fake news. I think you’re responding to deep state leaks. Actually, when we fire 1,000 Patriot missile interceptors, we end up with 1,000 more. It’s just these deep staters in the U.S. military who, like, have this weird math where subtraction gives you less at the end of the day. I don’t know, sometimes it’s hard to know the difference between a lie and someone being completely disconnected from reality.
And I think it’s more the latter with some of these guys. Like, they actually believe that we’re in a strong position with respect to Iran, and they keep saying that China needs the Straits of Hormuz open much more than we do. Yes, China gets more of its oil. from that part of the world than we do right now, but they’ve got massive reserves. They’ve invested big time in renewables. They still have a lot of coal power. They can sustain their economy through this crisis better than we can.
And from their point of view, what’s happening is wonderful, because they, again, they see American military power being depleted, they see American diplomatic strength being weakened, and they’re quite happy just to sit back. And let us keep doing this. They’re not going to help us unless we give up something absolutely fundamental, which would be even Which would be even worse. But I think these guys, like, seem to, like, they actually believe what they’re saying, and that’s a little scary. I’d almost rather that they be lying, because then I understand what the stakes are.
Jen Rubin
We have seen these incredible, like, leaks from the intelligence community on our side, saying, you know what? We’ve told the administration these missile batteries, they got them back. They’ve got 90% of what they need. They’ve got 30 of 33 installations, including right around the Strait of Hormuz. We know what’s going on. This seems to be the classic CYA from the intelligence community. We’ve told these guys, they are spinning whenever they’re spinning, but don’t you, American and the political establishment, think that we don’t know what’s going on? It’s a pretty remarkable gap between what the Pentagon, frankly, and the intelligence community is understanding, is reporting, and what the administration is talking about. The gap is just huge.
Tom Malinowski
It is, and I think what you said is exactly right. And, you know, hence the references from Hegseth and company that it’s, you know, just deep state leakers. The deep state, in this case, are senior officers in the U.S. military and our nation’s best intelligence experts on Iran. But they’re stuck, you know, like, they could just declare victory and walk away, but even they understand that it would be hard to sustain an argument that that would be good for the United States. So, they keep looking to ramp up pressure on Iran to give them something that would look more like a victory. The Iranians are not going to oblige. Which means we only have a couple of choices.
We either prosecute this war seriously. and get rid of the Iranian regime, which we could do, right? Practically, you know, the United States can beat Iran in a war, but it would be a brutal and difficult and costly war in which many Americans would die. Just to clean up the mistake that Trump made. Or you accept a deal that is gonna be more on Iran’s terms right now than ours, it’s not gonna be better than Obama’s Iran nuclear deal. And that’s gonna be embarrassing for these guys, too. There is not another option out there.
Jen Rubin
He says lots of bizarre things, but in particular, he said something bizarre, like, we really don’t need to root out the nuclear-enriched material. We’re just doing that for PR and for show. It was a remarkable statement that suggests that, what, he’s willing to forego that? That he doesn’t really care? What did you make of that statement?
Tom Malinowski
You know, they contradict themselves all the time. So, if you take that statement as a signal of where Trump administration policy is going, you would conclude, okay, that means they’re going to do a deal that is basically similar to the Obama-run nuclear deal, in which we don’t take every ounce of nuclear material out of Iran. It’s diluted, it’s secured, but some of it stays there. They still maybe have a civilian nuclear program, maybe they can enrich up to 3.4%, maybe nothing for 15 years or so. Like, that maybe, if we’re lucky, is available. And it would be better than the status quo, but they would have to eat so much crow, because for years, they’ve been telling us that the Iran deal was a disaster, that they could do better without going to war with Iran.
And that whole argument has completely fallen apart, where the best we can possibly get is a return to the Obama administration status quo, but with Iran having more leverage over the Straits of Hormuz, because they’ve demonstrated a willingness and capacity to close the Straits when they want.
Jen Rubin
What is surprising is that Iran feels so confident about its position, and seems to have recognized that the control of the Strait of Hormuz is worth as much, maybe even more, than its nuclear program, that it’s unwilling to trade, you know, a blockade for a blockade. And allow that to go forward while they negotiate about the rest of it later. You would think that a country that really had qualms about going back to war and had financial distress would consider that to be kind of a good deal, but they don’t even feel compelled to do that.
Tom Malinowski
Well, I think they may be willing to do a you know, just a deal to reopen the Straits. Because remember, they could take that back at any point. It’s not like, you know, if they ship all of the nuclear material out of the country, that’s permanent, right? Say, there’s no takebacks for that. But they have demonstrated something that was only theoretically possible before. By threatening shipping, they can shut everything down. Because the insurance companies will not insure ships to go in if there’s even a small threat. And so, you know, I think that’s probably, if we’re gonna get a deal, it probably begins with a mutual reopening of the Straits while we talk about the nuclear, concessions that we will require them to make for sanctions relief. And, you know, they do need sanctions relief, because they do have economic problems.
It’s not like they’re happy that half their senior leadership was killed, or that, you know, certainly not all, but, you know, a chunk of their military was hidden this way. So they, you know, they do have an interest in coming to some terms with us, but it’s not going to be satisfying for an administration that promised so much more. And, like, we’re all gonna suffer. Until they realize that that’s the situation that they’re in.
Jen Rubin
Take a subject that has nothing to do with what we just discussed. Put on your New Jersey hat for me! Who the heck is Tom Keene Jr? This is the man who won the New Jersey 7th. He has disappeared! He’s on some health issue, we don’t know what it is. He hasn’t showed up for 2 months. Have we sent out bloodhounds? Do we know where he is? What is going on?
Tom Malinowski
Well, you very diplomatically did not mention who lost the race that he won. I mean, I beat him once, and then he beat me the second time. And, you know, I had a debate with him in that campaign. It was the only time he actually emerged from his bunker. In the whole campaign, one debate. We actually had two debates. And at one point, I just said, like. you know, if we send this guy to Washington. We’re gonna be hearing a lot about Kevin McCarthy and Marjorie Taylor Greene, we’re not going to be hearing anything. About Tom Kane Jr, he is going to disappear. And I wasn’t talking about some health problem.
Jen Rubin
That’s amazing!
Tom Malinowski
It’s just, you know, now there’s clearly a health problem. It’s obviously serious, because he wouldn’t have missed 3 months’ worth of votes if it wasn’t serious. It’s probably something embarrassing, because otherwise, why not tell people what’s going on? His chief of staff was quoted everywhere yesterday as saying, there’s no cameras where Tom is right now. It’s kind of a weird statement.
Jen Rubin
That’s spooky!
Tom Malinowski
There never were cameras where Tommy’s coming. Guided. The day he was elected, he’s just a strange man.
Jen Rubin
Yeah, very bizarre, and in all seriousness, he has left the 7th District without any representation, and that’s really indefensible. I mean, they don’t have a representative who is doing his job.
Tom Malinowski
Yeah, and, you know, I want to be careful here, like, there’s obviously… it’s a human being, and there’s obviously some serious health complications. And that’s not a fault, right? It happens to people. At all ages, who… have any kind of drop, including in Congress. But if your job as a member of Congress, your boss, is the people that you represent. And you’ve got an obligation to tell your boss.
He wrote some statement, quote, in his name. which obviously, like, I mean, it was probably written by his staff. No one in the Republican Party knows what’s going on. Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, does not know what’s going on. His colleagues don’t know. There’s just something deeply unsettling and bizarre about the whole situation, and you know, politically, it should be resolved with his defeat in November.
Jen Rubin
Yes, yes. If Republicans actually had leadership in the House, they would perhaps, demand some answers, but even they don’t know what’s going on. Tom, it is always great speaking with you. Thank you for your expertise on China and all matters. And folks, I got a very nice note from Tom after my piece on Thursday about the Senate, saying, you’re right, Jen. Callais is going to help us win the Senate, and I still believe that, and I believe it even more strongly, given What happened in Nebraska? Osborne is now outpacing Ricketts, and you see more and more and more seats coming into play for Democrats. So, it’s looking very good on the Senate side, folks.
Tom Malinowski
Yes, if we do our jobs.
Jen Rubin
You do your jobs , and if people get out, and if people rally and turn out the way they should, absolutely. We’ll look forward to talking to you soon, Tom. Take care, have a great weekend.
Tom Malinowski
See you later, bye-bye.
Jen Rubin
Bye-bye.
