The World Is Watching the U.S. and China: GOP Lawmaker

With that, we bring in Montana Republican Senator Steve Daines, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He serves as an informal advisor to President Trump on China, where he has spent quite a bit of time in his career over the years. He helps to lay the groundwork for these high-level U.S.-China summits, 13 years at P&G in his career, including six in China, launching American brands to compete with Chinese companies. He also is attending the state dinner this evening with President Trump and President Xi at the White House. Senator, very good to see you. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you. So given your background and your understanding of how the Chinese work, both in the corporate environment, we know that they help themselves to a lot of intelligence, a lot of property, intellectual property that is U.S. We know that they are basically trying to piggyback on a lot of our A.I. work in order to incorporate it in their own models. What do you think is the most pressing issue to accomplish on this visit? Yeah, well, I think it's important to frame the bigger picture. These are the two large economies in the world, the United States and China, the two largest militaries in the world, the United States and China. And on technology, the two leading countries in terms of A.I. frontier models is the United States and China. They do a better job adopting A.I. They're ranked second in the world, according to Stanford. We're ranked 24th. So we're ahead in terms of the innovation. We're behind in terms of adoption. I think a couple of key outcomes from this summit, well, number one, showing the stability of the relationship. It's very important to see both President Trump and President Xi Jinping working in a constructive manner in that public-facing environment. Behind closed doors, Secretary Besant, Vice Premier Hallie Feng, they've been having some, you know, very direct conversations and sorting out some of the trade disputes, A.I. disputes, Iran and so forth. But what's important in working with the Chinese and their government is to show respect publicly, have the spirit of conversations behind closed doors. That has been my experience of finding the most effective way to manage a productive relationship. So, you know, I get your point. And I think that clearly the president rolled out the red carpet, believes that in a sense you have to keep your friends close and your enemies closer. He wants to build a good relationship, and he has had one in the past. But when it comes to, you know, you have that on the one hand, and then you have China aiding Iran with targeting information at U.S. bases, aiming at United States military on the ground in the Middle East. We also have China giving them weapons components that only China can provide. So what are they doing? Yeah, well, I agree with Secretary Besant's public statements he's made over the last couple of years in relation to China. We cannot decouple, but we need to work on de-risking. And so engagement's very important. Believe me, there's some spiriting and strong conversations going on behind closed doors. Some of those issues you just brought up, including Iran, including intellectual property, including AI. But the opposite direction we could take is decoupling, disengaging and separating. I think that's a bad strategy. And so what President Trump is doing is exactly right. Look, he was in Beijing in May, unprecedented that he's reciprocated and brought Xi Jinping to Washington in September. There's been no time in history where a president of the United States has had that kind of quick one, two, back and forth in respective capitals that I can find. And so it says a lot about the importance the president puts in this relationship. And look, the world is watching this. Forty-two percent of the world's economy comes through these two countries. So it's important that we are engaged, having our conversation behind closed doors. But externally, making sure we're exhibiting respect. And I think President Trump has done exactly right in terms of his welcoming last night and the state dinner this evening. So absolutely, it's outcome that really matters in terms of U.S. dominance in AI and around the world militarily as well. That is the outcome that I think every American wants to see. And how we get there is really up to the president in terms of his negotiation and his style with handling and managing this very complex situation. So we'll be watching closely. And thank you for your background on all of it. Good to see you, Senator Jay. And many thanks.