Donald Trump wanted to make history this week. A new chapter of strength, of the “Return of America.” Instead, the world is witnessing a president who sees himself as the greatest dealmaker fail at the reality of his own exaggerations - economically, diplomatically, and personally. Today, Trump is scheduled to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in the South Korean port city of Busan as part of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit - the first major summit meeting since the beginning of the so-called “Liberation Day” tariff war that Trump unleashed in April. At that time, he had promised to bring China to its knees, protect American industry, and usher in a new era of fairness in global trade. What followed, however, was no triumph but an economic boomerang.
President Trump has arrived for his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea. He stepped out of the limousine “The Beast” and entered the building.
China, wiser and more patient, reacted as strategic powers do: it used its control over rare earths - those 17 elements without which modern technology simply cannot function. Without them there are no drones, no wind turbines, no smartphones, no fighter jets. Beijing controls over 90 percent of the global market and is the sole supplier of six heavy rare earths. Just two days after Trump’s tariff threat, China imposed export controls, later expanding them significantly.
President Xi has arrived in South Korea to meet with President Trump.
While Washington basked in its own pride, Xi quietly and methodically pulled the levers of dependency. A single Chinese submarine order requires four tons of these metals - and the United States has no meaningful stockpiles. The economic weapon Trump had unleashed turned against him. Now, shortly before the meeting in Busan, both sides are negotiating a ceasefire - but even U.S. government officials privately refer to it as a “loss of face in diplomatic wrapping.” According to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the new framework agreement envisions that the United States will cut or eliminate tariffs and China, in return, will only temporarily lift its export restrictions. One year of reprieve - one year of dependency in installments. Xi could not have copied it better from The Art of War.
The Chinese strategist Sun Tzu wrote 2,500 years ago: “To subdue the enemy without fighting is the highest art.” That is precisely what Xi is doing now. He doesn’t need to fire a missile to weaken America’s influence in Asia - Trump’s impatience does that for him. The president who promises strength is capitulating to Beijing and, in the process, jeopardizing not only America’s credibility but also its security commitments to Taiwan and its allies in the Pacific.
But the week brought another humiliation - this time from Japan. On Tuesday, Trump declared in Tokyo that Toyota would “invest around ten billion dollars in the United States.” A statement that perfectly fits the image of a president who invents economic successes when none exist.
Der Präsident der Luftnummern – The president of hot air - Donald Trump has once again made history - this time as the first president to credit himself with investments that do not exist. Ten billion dollars, he says, Toyota will pour into the U.S. Toyota says: “We know nothing about that.” One could dismiss it as a communication mishap - or as an attempt to buoy the stock market with hot air.
Just a few hours later came the correction - public, polite, but unmistakable. “We have made no such promise,” Toyota executive Hiroyuki Ueda said on Wednesday on the sidelines of the Japan Mobility Show. In discussions with the Japanese government and the U.S. Embassy before Trump’s visit, there had been no commitment whatsoever for an investment of that magnitude, Ueda said. The company would, of course, continue to invest in American facilities as before, but the figure of ten billion apparently stemmed from a misunderstanding - or, as the subtext implied, an invention.
“During the first Trump administration, the figure was roughly around ten billion dollars,” Ueda explained. “We didn’t speak of the same scale this time, but we said we would continue to invest. Probably because of that, the number of about ten billion came up.” Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda himself, Ueda said, had only briefly met Trump the previous evening at a U.S. Embassy event. Investments were not discussed.
This burst yet another bubble of Trump’s propagandistic industrial policy. The president wanted to project strength, but instead he stands there as a man who invents his own numbers to disguise weakness. The contrast could not be starker: while Xi, with cool precision, exploits America’s structural dependencies, Trump clings to the illusion of economic grandeur. He talks about record investments that do not exist and about deals that no one has made. This is not an economic miracle - it is a simulation of power.
And even those who once supported him are beginning to doubt. Behind the scenes of the Republican Party, unrest is growing because Trump’s trade war has harmed not only agriculture and industry but also the international credibility of the United States. Industry associations are sounding the alarm, investments are stagnating, and international partners are keeping their distance.
Xi, on the other hand, understands the game of patience: a one-year suspension of export restrictions on rare earths gives the world the illusion of relaxation - while China cements its control. If the United States wants to build fighter jets, tanks, or electronics in the future, it will continue to depend on Chinese supplies. This is not a ceasefire - it is blackmail on time.
What remains is a president who wins the war of words and loses the war of realities. Trump has alienated America’s farmers, embarrassed the auto industry, and handed China the strategic upper hand. The world will again see images on Thursday in Beijing of handshakes, red carpets, and grand words. But beneath the surface, the verdict has long been sealed: Donald Trump has lost the trade war before the talks even begin - and with it the trust that America still knows how to define strength.
In the end, Trump’s “twelve out of ten” turned out to be little more than an attempt to disguise his own mistakes. He cut the punitive tariffs on Chinese chemicals from 20 to 10 percent, bringing the overall tariff burden on Chinese imports down from 57 to 47 percent—a symbolic move that offered relief to U.S. companies rather than pressure on Beijing. In return, China merely agreed to resume purchases of American soybeans and to partially lift its export restrictions on rare earth elements—the metals the U.S. needs for aircraft, chips, and electric vehicles. There was no talk of a trade agreement, only of a possible Trump visit to China in April and further discussions between Nvidia and Chinese officials about the export of advanced chips. Xi stayed composed while Trump celebrated himself, but the reality is that he eased tariffs to calm a crisis of his own making. The summit in Busan was no breakthrough, but a tactical retreat—and China walked away as the only winner.
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