What to Expect From the Trump-Xi Summit in China | Ep. 34

President Donald Trump is heading to Beijing for a high-stakes summit with Xi Jinping—in the middle of an active war with Iran, a new National Defense Strategy putting the Indo-Pacific front and center, and with allies in Seoul and across NATO recalibrating around a less predictable Washington. What does Trump want, what can he get, and what does it mean for the U.S.-South Korea alliance?

Susan A. Thornton, former Acting Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and Senior Fellow at Yale Law School's Paul Tsai China Center, joins Eye on Korea to break down the summit and the diplomatic terrain around it.

We cover: 🔹 What issues are on the table at the Trump-Xi summit, and why the timing is unusual 🔹 Why reestablishing clearer, more consistent U.S.-China communication channels is critical to keep the relationship from going off the rails 🔹 Whether competition with China shaped the U.S. timing and strategy in the strikes on Iran 🔹 The unusual posture of a U.S. president visiting Beijing in the middle of an active war 🔹 Why Trump is walking into this summit with a weaker hand than the rhetoric suggests 🔹 Whether the United States will ask China to help broker diplomacy with Iran 🔹 The new National Defense Strategy and what it signals for U.S. and allied deterrence posture in the Indo-Pacific 🔹 Why reports of friction between Washington and NATO are overblown 🔹 How allies such as South Korea are absorbing unpredictability out of the White House 🔹 The economic connections to China that the United States and its allies still depend on 🔹 Why multilateralism looks unlikely in the near term—and whether tech cooperation alone can drive structural change while tariffs and uncertainty persist 🔹 Critical minerals and the supply chain fight 🔹 Why allies and trading partners have to hit back when the Trump administration hits them—and why that posture has worked in the economic and trade domains

Susan A. Thornton is a retired senior U.S. diplomat with almost 30 years of experience at the U.S. State Department in Eurasia and East Asia. She currently serves as a senior fellow and research scholar at the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale University Law School, director of the Forum on Asia-Pacific Security at the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Until July 2018, Thornton was acting assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs at the Department of State, where she led East Asia policymaking amid crises with North Korea, escalating trade tensions with China, and a fast-changing international environment. In previous State Department roles, she worked on U.S. policy toward China, Korea, and the former Soviet Union, and served in leadership positions at U.S. embassies in Central Asia, Russia, the Caucasus, and China. She received her master's in international relations from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and her bachelor's in economics and Russian from Bowdoin College. She serves on several non-profit boards and speaks Mandarin and Russian.

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