it looks like the orange man has met his match in xi;

Donald Trump and the citizens of the US are about to learn some very hard, costly lessons. If you’re going to get into a trade war with another country, you should be sure that you control or have access to all the critical minerals and resources you need to produce essential items, such as weapons, drones or prescription drugs. Trump and his team failed to understand this critical issue and have now provoked China into a trade war that the US cannot win.

Trump has been provoking China for several years. For example, Huawei was banned in the United States through an executive order issued by President Donald Trump on May 15, 2019, which led to the Department of Commerce adding Huawei to its Entity List, restricting US companies from doing business with Huawei due to national security concerns. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) later voted unanimously to ban the sale of new Huawei devices and equipment in the US to further secure communications networks.

More recently, in response to Trump’s tariffs, China stopped purchasing soybeans from US farmers and is now buying almost exclusively from Brazil. That has caused some major pain for US farmers, and Trump recently announced that was one of the issues he planned to discuss with Xi at the upcoming APEC summit. Looks like that won’t be happening.

China is now punching back with power. Arnaud Betrand, writing on his X account, lays it out in detail:...........more.........