ExclusiveTrump Warns UK, Canada on More Chinese Trade

Welcome to China In Focus, I'm Tiffany Meyer. Our top story, a new warning from President Donald Trump to the United Kingdom and Canada over making deals with China. Well it's very dangerous for them to do that and it's even more dangerous I think for Canada to get into business with China. The UK, Canada and India flocking to China in search of deals and alternatives to U.S. markets but experts say there are limits. A big win for the Trump administration, Chinese companies can no longer operate ports in the Panama Canal. The country's Supreme Court ruled in favor of the U.S. Cuba now in the spotlight, facing pressure from the U.S. President Trump issues an executive order targeting countries selling oil to Cuba. And Missouri is moving to shut down a trailer park next to Whiteman Air Force Base, home to one of the most advanced U.S. military aircraft. The trailer park's being targeted due to its owner's ties to China. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday responding to Trump's warnings that it's dangerous for the U.K. to do business with China. The comment from Starmer comes as he wraps up his visit in Shanghai. I've seen the clip and I think he then immediately goes on to talk about Canada but look the U.S. and the U.K. are very close allies and that's why we discussed the visit with his team before we came and I think I'm right in saying that President Trump is himself visiting China or expected to visit China in April. And here's President Trump commenting on Starmer's China visit Thursday. Well it's very dangerous for them to do that and it's even more dangerous I think for Canada to get into business with China. Canada is not doing well, they're doing very poorly and you can't look at China as the answer. I know China very well, I know President Xi is a friend of mine, I know him very well but that's a big hurdle to go over when you get Canada. The first thing they're going to do is say you're not allowed to play ice hockey anymore, that's not good. The U.K., Canada and India have recently flocked to China looking for deals as their relations got worse with the U.S. but how far can these countries go by turning to Chinese markets? Here's more. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's visit to China is the latest win Beijing can tout in its rivalry with Washington but the deals Starmer brought home show how hard it is for middle powers like the U.K. and Canada to find balance between the United States and China. Canada's Mark Carney struck a trade deal on a similar visit weeks ago. India's Narendra Modi and European leaders have also made the trip. The message they're trying to send Washington is simple, we have alternatives. That's if Trump continues to make trade tariff threats over issues like his plan to grab control of Greenland. We need Greenland. Economists warn a pivot to China has sharp limits. Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief Asia-Pacific economist at NatTexas, calls the visits superficial gestures amid stalled global growth. China's consumer demand is weak. Imports were flat last year, about $2.6 trillion, and they were mostly energy and commodities, not western goods. Meanwhile, China's trade surplus hit a record $1.2 trillion. Its manufacturers have responded to Trump's tariffs by flooding goods into other markets at the expense of domestic producers. The deals Britain clinched in Beijing made some headlines. Visa-free access for Britain's going to China, lower scotch tariffs, and multi-billion-dollar expansion plans for drugmaker AstraZeneca. On harder issues though, like China's Russian ties, its threats against Taiwan, and its Starmer got nothing more than frank dialogue. At home, critics raised espionage and human rights accusations, claims Beijing denies. Last year, China shipped 7.8% more to Britain, while buying 4.7% less. Former International Monetary Fund China director Eswar Prasad says it's a risky proposition for countries trying to protect or grow their own manufacturing industries to substantially boost trade integration with China. A major setback for China's influence in the Western Hemisphere, this time in Panama. The country's Supreme Court has ended a contract allowing a Hong Kong-based company to operate key ports in Panama Canal. The ruling on Thursday comes after mounting pressure and growing U.S. security concerns. Panama's Supreme Court ruled that the decades-long contract with C.K. Hutchison is unconstitutional. As a result, the Chinese company will be forced to stop operating the canal ports. It's a major win for President Trump, who argued that China's growing footprint around the canal poses a national security threat. He warned that China's growing influence over its ports could let Beijing block or pressure U.S. military operations and trade ships in a crisis. Panama's president says the country plans to keep the ports running with a temporary operator before launching a new bidding process with revised terms. Since C.K. Hutchison took over in the late 1990s, Panama has lost more than 1.3 billion dollars in revenue. That's according to a government audit. The ruling also comes amid U.S.-China tensions over port dominance. Last year, the Chinese company agreed to sell dozens of ports worldwide. A business association led by U.S.-based BlackRock and Mediterranean Shipping intended to buy them for about 23 billion dollars. China pushed back on the deal, aiming to maintain control over the ports. Despite China's presence in the region, the U.S. remains Panama's top investor and trading partner. Notably, Panama pulled out of China's Belt and Road Initiative last year, signaling a shift back toward Washington. The Trump administration took action on several fronts Thursday. Beside China, the UK and Canada, it was also touching on two oil producers from South America, Cuba and Venezuela. Cuba is in focus under a new executive order from President Trump. It enables putting tariffs on goods from countries that sell or otherwise provide oil to Cuba. The order says the Cuban regime aligns itself with numerous hostile countries like China, Russia and Iran, hosting their military and intelligence capabilities. It says Cuba provides safe haven for transnational terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas. It also says the regime persecutes and tortures political opponents, denies free speech and press, profits corruptly from the Cuban people's misery, and incites chaos by spreading communist ideology across the region. In Venezuela, acting President Delsi Rodriguez signed into law a major reform of the country's oil legislation yesterday. The step followed a phone call from President Trump concerning the nation's commercial airspace. We are talking about lifting restrictions on Venezuela's commercial airspace so that all airlines that need to come can come and investors that need to come can come. American citizens will be very shortly able to go to Venezuela and they'll be safe there. American Airlines confirmed plans to resume service to Venezuela for the first time in more than six years. Late yesterday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy rescinded a 2019 order blocking U.S. flights to the country after President Trump directed him to do so. Missouri is moving to shut down a trailer park next to Whiteman Air Force Base. The base is home to the B-2 stealth bombers, one of the most advanced military aircraft the U.S. has ever built. And the trailer park sits right along the base's fence line. From there, people can easily film the bombers landing and taking off. A Daily Caller investigation reveals the complicated story behind the trailer park operator, a company called Property Solutions 3603LP. The company is run by a Canadian couple of Chinese origin who have ties to Chinese businessman Miles Guo. Guo is a convicted scammer who has claimed to have once worked with Chinese Communist Party intelligence. Last week, Missouri's Secretary of State announced the state is revoking the company's business license. A former Google engineer has been convicted of stealing the company's AI trade secrets to benefit Chinese firms he secretly worked for. On Thursday, a jury found Leon Ding guilty on 14 federal charges, including economic espionage and theft of trade secrets. Ding, a Chinese national, joined Google in 2019. He stole over 2,000 pages of confidential AI information between 2022 and 2023. Ding was secretly working with two Chinese tech firms around that time and made plans to launch his own AI startup in China. He claimed he could build a supercomputer by rebranding Google's technology as his own. After downloading the documents, he resigned and flew to China. The FBI arrested him in 2024. Ding now faces decades in prison on those charges. His next court appearance is set for next Tuesday. Staying on the tech giant, Google has shut down a virus that turned phones and computers into tools for cybercrime and espionage. A Chinese-based company called IP Idea produced a virus used by hackers to spy on people's phones and computers if installed. When one device in the household gets infected, the virus will spread to all devices. Earlier this month, over 550 cybercrime groups used the virus, putting millions of devices at risk in just one week. Google removed and blocked apps connected to the virus. The company is also working with other internet security companies to take down websites related to the virus. Google is warning users to avoid downloading apps from shady websites because these apps could be connected to the virus. Coming up, the removal of two top generals by Chinese regime leader Xi Jinping has created speculation. A response from China's defense ministry spokesperson. And a Chinese man has been granted asylum in the U.S. He fled communist China with footage widely seen as firsthand evidence regarding the regime's human rights abuses against Uyghurs. More on that after the break here on China In Focus. Welcome back to China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. The removal of two top generals by Chinese regime leader Xi Jinping has created much speculation on internal power struggles and how they could affect regional security. At a Thursday press conference, the Chinese defense ministry responded to questions from foreign outlets regarding the purged generals. The spokesperson did not provide much information. He did, however, respond to a Wall Street Journal report saying that General Zhang Youxia leaked intelligence about Chinese nuclear weapons to the U.S. The spokesperson told the reporters, do not make unfounded speculations. To discuss the issue and more, NTD's Kerry Dunst was joined by Rod D. Martin, geopolitical analyst and founder of Martin Capital. Rod, it's good to see you. Thanks for joining. Of course, everybody now has heard about the removal of these two generals. What's your understanding, though, of what's happening behind the scenes in Beijing? Well, it's very clear that the Western media is confused, as usual, about all of this, and it's easy to understand why. It's all very confusing. Totalitarian regimes don't really do transparency. But it seems pretty clear if you look at this over the last year, and for that matter, over the last several years, that this is a rolling purge, and that purge is not about corruption. That purge is a power struggle between what seems pretty clearly at this point to be Xi and his faction, and Zhang Yousha, the highest-ranking general in the People's Liberation Army, the PLA, who we all hear are best friends. But that's clearly not the case. And we have seen purge and what seems to be counter-purge now all year long, really reaching a frenzy in October, just before the Party Congress, when you lose nine senior Chinese military leaders in a day. It's just extraordinary. And a lot of those men seem to be allies of Xi. Well, now we have what looks like a reprisal with Zhang and his chief deputy in custody. We don't know where that goes, but it's very dangerous. And, Rob, for people who don't really understand the concept of factions due to not having sort of an open political process, as you kicked off by saying, how can somebody from the outside begin to understand what the factions are, how many there are, and sort of what makes Xi unique, really, since Mao Zedong? Well, he is. And a lot of this looks like echoes of the Cultural Revolution. Xi is consolidating power the best he can and has been from the beginning of his time, including extending the term limit so that he could continue to serve beyond what had become customary prior to his reign. He is creating a cult of personality, has been for quite some time, has really gotten rid of everybody in the entire government, not just the military, who could possibly be a challenge to him or a logical successor. The net result of that is that there are hardly any competent people in senior leadership. This is one of the dangerous things about losing Zhang. It seems from all intents that it's actually the military that is hesitant about invading Taiwan. They understand the real limitations of the Chinese military. They understand what they're facing if they try to cross the Formosa Strait. Xi Jinping does not seem to. He seems to be a gambler. And the fact that he keeps purging people who can really hurt him in his government, people who can fight back, tells you that gambler instinct is there. And it makes it very dangerous for a confrontation with Taiwan, with Japan, and with the United States. Rod, I'd like to explore that point a bit further. It seems as if this survival mode, almost like a cockroach, they just always know how to survive. The party protects itself. And when it feels like there's a boil in civil unrest, especially from the economy and potentially some of the tariffs that Trump is imposing, putting more pressure on the economy, that the party maybe backs away from military aggression against Taiwan. Are you saying potentially that Xi sees opportunity to consolidate and squash any civil unrest through military action in Taiwan? Look, my assessment continues to be that an invasion of Taiwan is relatively low probability, not because Beijing doesn't want to do it, but because Beijing knows that it's a very high risk operation. But in line with what you're saying, in this situation, it might make sense to Xi, especially with yes-men around him now, really, really almost exclusively, it might make sense to him to try something that a different group of leaders did not that long ago. That would be the Argentine junta, the generals who ran Argentina in the 70s and early 80s. They invaded the Falkland Islands, assuming it would be a walkover, assuming Britain was much too far away to do anything about it. Margaret Thatcher sent an armada to the South Atlantic, booted them out. And in a matter of months, all of those generals were in prison, and you had a democracy in Argentina. I think Zhang Yaosha understands that example better than Xi Jinping. And I think that Xi might actually think he can gamble and pull something off that Zhang would try to damper. So I don't think that's going to happen. But there's a much increased danger today, as opposed to a month ago. A New York immigration judge has granted asylum to a Chinese man who fled communist rule and entered the U.S. illegally. The decision came because of the high risk of persecution he could face if sent back to China. That risk is largely tied to his efforts in exposing China's human rights abuses. His mother, Luo Yun, flew to the U.S. for her son's immigration trial. She told NTD that she was thrilled after hearing the court's decision. Guan remains in custody while the Department of Homeland Security decides whether to appeal. Guan Hong was arrested by ICE last August. He was then in the process of being deported to Uganda. After escaping China in 2021, Guan published videos believed to show China's concentration camps for Uyghurs. Those works have been widely featured as groundbreaking evidence about Beijing's persecution against the ethnic minority group. Last year, the DHS dropped its request to deport Guan to Uganda after it received a letter from the House Select China Committee. The committee called for his release and urged that his asylum request be approved. President Trump recently announced a framework for a deal with NATO on Greenland's future. The president said he would not use military force to obtain the territory, but has expressed interest in a U.S. acquisition. What could be the future of Greenland as it relates to American interests, and what does history tell us about negotiations over large land masses? Entity's Kevin Hogan spoke to C. Evan Stewart, a visiting professor at Cornell University, to break it down. Here to unpack all of this is C. Evan Stewart. He's a visiting professor at Cornell University, plus an adjunct professor at Fordham Law School. Thanks for your time, Professor Stewart. Based on the stance of the Greenlandic politicians and the sentiment of the Danes, what could be the most likely outcome of any American negotiations surrounding Greenland? Well, of course, we don't know what the future holds. But as a practical matter, in the aftermath of World War II, we've had functional military control of Greenland. So I think as a practical matter, from a geopolitical standpoint, I can foresee us having more, if you will, boots on the ground there and military operations. Certainly there's a reason to do this, because China and Russia are exerting their influence there, and that's something that's not in our national interest. Well, yes, absolutely. The concerns surround Russia's use of the missiles and also China's naval activity and infrastructure in the Arctic as part of the reasons. Now, many Americans, including lawmakers, were skeptical of the Alaska purchase at the time, but it proved to be an investment with lasting returns. Now, how does that compare to Trump's interests in Greenland? It's very similar. In fact, the same man who bought Alaska, William Henry Seward, at the same time was trying to buy Greenland. So they're on different sides of our country, but they have very important, not just mineral stakes there, but they also have geopolitical. So for example, in World War II, Franklin Roosevelt moved essentially the American Navy beyond Greenland to protect our country. So these areas, Alaska, Seward also bought Midway, had designs on Hawaii, had a plan for the Panama Canal. These things are part of American history that didn't just suddenly pop up in the last 12 months. This is something that's really part of our history, literally for 175 years. And Professor Seward, geopolitical tensions, as we've been touching on with Russia and China, are intensifying. And Greenland is right at the intersection of North America, Europe, and the Arctic. And U.S. officials want to prevent those adversaries from gaining a foothold in the region. How important is this potentially strategic asset to America? No doubt it's very, very important. And again, Seward saw this as it's recently come out. President Truman tried to buy it for $100 million in gold at the end of World War II. Again, Franklin Roosevelt saw it as a critically important strategic point on the North Atlantic to get our ships and troops across the Atlantic to fight in World War II and to resupply the Soviet Union. Geopolitically, it's an incredibly important part of the world for us. And essentially, where I see us ending up is reestablishing the military presence that we let crumble over the last, say, 40 years. That's all for today's China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. If you have any feedback on the show or have something you'd like to see us cover, send us an email at ntd.com. We'd love to hear from you. For around-the-clock original news coverage, visit us at ntd.com or download our NTD app. Thanks for watching. See you soon.