Thomas Friedman, a columnist for The New York Times, once summarized his recent trip to China in this way: "Just now, I saw the future, and it's not in America."
Recently, in a dialogue with Ezra Klein, an American journalist, writer, and podcast host, Friedman reiterated his view and sharply criticized the trade policies (such as high tariffs) of the Trump administration, which lacked a supporting strategy and instead weakened America's alliances and industrial base with his characteristic sharp perspective.
In this conversation, Friedman used the "gym theory" to deconstruct the code of China's rise: from solar panels to electric vehicles, Chinese enterprises are like boxers fighting on a cruel ring, enduring several rounds of elimination to become world champions. Friedman believes that both parties of the U.S. have formed a highly consistent hawkish consensus on China, viewing it as a competitor that must be contained. This policy driven by hostility is not only outdated but may also backfire.
Of course, as an American scholar, Friedman believes that China's rise should be taken seriously. Through wise and planned policies, China should be forced to cooperate with the U.S., rather than the haphazard approach taken by the current Trump administration, which will only miss opportunities.
The Observer Network translates the dialogue content for readers' reference only.
Video screenshot of American journalist and podcaster Ezra Klein interviewing New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman
[Written by Ezra Klein and Thomas Friedman, translated by the Observer Network, Chen Jiarui]
Ezra Klein: One sentence in your recent column left a deep impression on me - the pandemic has had negative impacts on many aspects, but one underestimated aspect is that it severely weakened our ability to understand China. Why do you say so?
Thomas Friedman: During the pandemic, almost all American business executives in China evacuated. After the pandemic, we started the so-called "decoupling" process. Therefore, over the past six years, America's presence in China has been almost zero. Last year when I was in China, I felt like I was the only American there. Whether tourists, businessmen or others, it was hard to see any Americans.
Ezra Klein: I noticed that you mentioned that during those six years, only one Congressional delegation visited China. In your column article, you also expressed similar views - in American politics, we often find it difficult to conduct meaningful discussions due to too much disagreement on issues. However, on issues related to China, we have reached too many consensuses. How do you describe the consensus between the two parties in the U.S. on China issues?
Thomas Friedman: From Trump 1.0 era to Biden administration, and now to Trump 2.0, in Washington D.C., speaking well of China has almost become a taboo. This atmosphere has led to a general avoidance of China: American companies began to be reluctant to hire Chinese employees, and American universities also appeared reluctant to send students to study in China.
As a result, there is a huge asymmetry: China has 260,000 to 270,000 students studying in the U.S., while we have only a few thousand students in China.
From aerospace to new materials, from autonomous driving cars to robotics, the Chinese government has been promoting industrial upgrading. This has changed the entire chemical reaction of Sino-U.S. relations.
However, the core of Sino-U.S. relations has always been American enterprises. Since the late 1970s, American enterprises have been making money in China. Even when Sino-U.S. relations became unstable, American enterprises basically lobbied: "Calm down, it doesn't matter, we're still here making money." But now more and more American enterprises feel they are not getting the expected benefits from China, and have to transfer too much technology, coupled with the rise of China's own technical strength, these three factors have completely changed this relationship.
Ezra Klein: You mentioned the reduction of cross-border exchanges, technological exchanges, and student exchanges.
I heard from Americans, business leaders, and other authorities another side: they increasingly believe and think that China has been conducting large-scale industrial, educational, and even political espionage against the United States.
The concern about Chinese students studying here or hiring Chinese workers stems from a feeling. Related to this, some people believe that espionage is the reason behind China's rise. Based on this, Senator Josh Hawley, who is influential in foreign affairs, said: China cannot truly innovate; they can only steal from us.
I am very curious about how you view this.
Thomas Friedman: Because I really don't know anything about espionage, I cannot express any opinions. Officials in Washington often say: "If you knew what I know, you would be even more worried." My response is: I wish I knew what you know, so everything would make more sense.
As for the claim that China cannot innovate, if you ask Chinese enterprises operating in the U.S. or Europe, they will tell you: We came here initially because of China's market, and now it's because we need to be close to innovation. If we are not here, we cannot access the most cutting-edge technologies in our fields, especially in the automotive industry.
Because China realized it could not compete with the U.S. in the internal combustion engine vehicle sector, it directly jumped to the electric vehicle and ultimately autonomous driving car field. It achieved this leap by transforming smartphone companies into automobile companies. After the pandemic, when I returned to China, I found out: Xiaomi used to be a phone company, now it can also build cars; Huawei is the same.
Xiaomi Su7 Ultra
They put phones on wheels. This is significant because when you take a Didi ride, the whole experience is seamlessly digitized, perfectly synchronized between the phone and the vehicle.
When I was recently in China, I took a Huawei car. A Huawei employee was also with me. He pulled out his laptop, lowered the car roof screen, and immediately the computer synced with the screen. He started working in the car. He asked me: "Do you want to watch something?" I said: "Sure, play Paul Simon's concert at Hyde Park in London for me, I want to watch it on my way to your campus."
About 30 seconds later, the video played. The sound quality was amazing, I've never heard such great sound effects in a moving car before. This technology is far ahead of ours.
I also met the head of Volkswagen China. They have an entire set of "China exclusive" facilities, which my friend Joerg Wuttke, former president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China, calls the "China gym". Unless you work out in the gym with them, you will get crushed.
Ezra Klein: This conversation originated from a rather casual phone call. At that time, you had just returned from China, and I had just finished my book tour. We were originally talking about other things, and then I asked how your trip to China went. Your answer left a deep impression on me: "Ezra, you can't imagine how bad our situation is right now."
Thomas Friedman: Yes, I saw winners who have been training in the "gym" for 30 years in China.
Here's the thing: a new industry emerges, for example, solar panels. Cities across China decided to build solar panel factories, and the local governments provided subsidies, either for domestic enterprises or in collaboration with foreign partners.
As a result, within a short period of time, assuming that 75 solar panel companies emerged. They competed fiercely in the gym, and finally only five survived. These five companies are so powerful that they can go global at prices and levels of innovation that foreign competitors can hardly match. That's why China now almost dominates the global solar panel market.
But during the process of survival of the fittest, the domestic supply chain exploded, to support the development of the industry. The auto industry is the same, so is the robotics field. Five years later, you will see a complex network of supply chains.
Ezra Klein: What you described is this process: the Chinese government identified solar panels as an industry, through various mechanisms, injected massive subsidy funds nationwide, encouraging enterprises to develop solar panels. This led to some very strange phenomena.
A few years ago, there was an example where a troubled large real estate company tried to transform into an electric vehicle company because it could obtain a lot of financing. Therefore, many enterprises just made empty claims, many enterprises failed. But in this process, some strong "national champions" enterprises emerged, and the Chinese government subsequently invested a lot of resources to support them.
Back to the "gym" concept: in the U.S., we understand capitalism as survival of the fittest. But the Chinese government does not require you to be very strong from the start, but rather to become strong in the end. In fact, apart from some small-scale venture capital, we require competitiveness from the start.
Thomas Friedman: That's a good point. Let me give you a perfect example. Ford built a battery factory in Marshall, Michigan, funded by the Inflation Reduction Act of the Biden administration. This factory produces batteries for electric vehicles, but the technology comes from CATL in China. Actually, this technology originated in the U.S. during the Obama administration. People tried to scale it up here, but they failed and went bankrupt.
Later, a Chinese entrepreneur acquired this technology, brought it back to China for scaling, and now Chinese enterprises are transferring the technology to Ford, bringing it back here. This is the best example of lack of patience.
Ford Battery Plant in Marshall, Michigan
Ezra Klein: When both parties in the U.S. reach a consensus on something, I always feel uneasy. Now, whether Democrats or Republicans, there is a view that you can't say anything good about China.
I'm saying that in American politics, there is an almost absolute consensus: if you have political ambitions, questioning the correctness of "opening markets to China" or "rebuilding Sino-U.S. relations" may bring serious political consequences.
You can have Trump-style hostility: extremely high tariffs and highly confrontational rhetoric. Or you can have a more democratic hostility: the Biden administration tries to block a series of advanced technologies.
But you can't have the view that the correct way to deal with China is more connectivity, and efforts to pull the two countries back from the edge of the cliff, since now mutual hostility is escalating and both sides are preparing for a total war.
You have been tracking this topic for a long time. Tell me, how do you think this consensus was formed? How did we come from the Obama administration, when the Trans-Pacific Partnership was discussed, which was aimed at promoting trade transformation and turning towards Asia to strengthen engagement? This was actually a relatively moderate competitive approach. Then developed to Trump 1.0, Biden, and now Trump 2.0, which may be one of the sharpest policy changes we have seen in decades.
Thomas Friedman: Let me go back to your question and tell you about my worldview and how I see the whole China issue.
I believe that in today's world, in the post-Cold War era, humanity faces three major issues concerning survival.
Firstly, how to manage artificial intelligence. We must find a cooperative way to ensure that we can maximize the advantages of this new species while mitigating its possible negative impacts. This is urgent.
Secondly, human development has caused a certain degree of climate change, which requires our joint response.
Thirdly, the叠加 of all these pressures will lead to the collapse of many fragile states, resulting in chaos in certain regions. This phenomenon has already emerged.
My view is that only the two superpowers, the U.S. and China, can do this, but only if they cooperate. They can realize this early or later. This process can be smooth, or it can be painful. But I believe they will eventually realize this.
To me, whether I like China or not is not part of my consideration. We are moving towards a new world, entering an era I call the industrial ecosystem. I was born at the end of the Industrial Revolution, when a country could not prosper without coal, steel, aluminum, internal combustion engines, vehicles powered by internal combustion engines, and electricity.
To thrive in this era, you must be involved in all industries. I believe that in the future, thriving ecosystems will be robots, batteries, artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, and autonomous vehicles. This ecosystem will be the engine driving everything.
Therefore, as an American, I believe we must play a role in this ecosystem and be able to compete with China face-to-face.
This is how I solve this problem. I didn't consider Taiwan or think about communism or capitalism. Not long ago, I quoted a Trump administration official who said that China's global goal is to promote authoritarian Marxism (Authoritarian Marxism).
China has many goals in the world, but spreading authoritarian Marxism is not one of them. If we say China is trying to spread Marxism, it would be better to say they are trying to promote Muskism (Muskism). We must recognize this and take it seriously.
Finally, I want to say that given the industries we need to focus on, we cannot help but mention China: you can love it or hate it, I have both emotions every day. But the Chinese are serious, they are not like Donald Trump, who has been causing trouble in the past week, and they usually won't place incompetent people in key positions.
These are my biases when I look at this story. But when I participate in debates in Washington, the questions are always: Are you pro-China or anti-China? Did you say something good or bad about China?
These questions make me angry and helpless, because these discussions completely deviate from the world I see, the world in which I hope America can thrive. In this world, I believe that to succeed, we must take these issues seriously.
Ezra Klein: Let me try to interpret my view of how the Washington consensus evolved. I have discussed this issue with many Democrats, who often rebut: "Thomas Friedman is too naive." When the U.S. opened the global trading system to China, it implied a logic roughly as follows: if we admit China into the global trading system, they will expand trade, accumulate more wealth, raise domestic consumption levels, and eventually move toward economic and political liberalization.
China has indeed become richer, but it has not fully liberalized politically, which has made Americans feel threatened to some extent. The Thucydides Trap has become more common: between two superpowers, only one can ultimately prevail, and we need to prepare for it.
In fact, the U.S. has been weakening itself and strengthening China. Our industrial base has been transferred to China too much, and we have become overly dependent on China. I think this reached its peak after the Russian special operation. People saw how dependence on Russian gas weakened Europe and triggered reactions around the world. This feeling is: China is more dangerous than we imagined, it has strengthened its industrial base at the expense of ours.
We cannot let ourselves be in a situation in the future where we are in some kind of war or conflict with China but rely on them to continue providing us with what we need. Therefore, we need to decouple, we need to view China as an adversarial force, an adversarial nation.
This is how I explain the shift in Washington's focus. I think what I just said is not only something Republicans would say, but also something many Democratic members of Congress would tell you. What's wrong with this view?
I can only speak for myself. Actually, when Trump first introduced the tariff policy, I supported it. I even wrote a column titled: "Donald Trump is not the president the American public needs, but he is the Chinese president the U.S. needs."
Thomas Friedman: Someone has to stop this game. In this regard, I fully understand this viewpoint. Also, I want to confess something here. Whether I write about China in the U.S. or write about China in China, I am actually writing about the U.S.
My goal is to use China as a perpetual "Sputnik moment," helping people understand how powerful this engine is. If we don't take it seriously, we will be crushed.
Ezra Klein: I think there is a bit of confusion in the U.S. debate about China. Two things are happening simultaneously, but we have difficulty seeing them at the same time.
On one hand, the prevailing view in the later stages of the Biden administration seems to be: China's situation is quite bad, China has not escaped the middle-income trap, and living standards have not risen as expected. Meanwhile, the U.S. appears stronger, and China is relatively weaker.
People overlooked a key issue, which you mentioned in your column, that we always assumed that the more economically developed a country is and the more things it creates, the higher the living standards of its people will naturally rise, as other countries do. But China's situation is different, their living standards have not risen as quickly as we expected, so many people think the experiment has failed.
Meanwhile, if you look at the products they are creating, their factories, and industrial base, you will find that they are leading in many technical fields. In the field of artificial intelligence, China and the U.S. are fiercely competing, and the development of this technology between the two countries is only months apart. As you mentioned, in battery, electric vehicle, and the ability to build highly complex supply chains, they may already be ahead of us.
On January 27, DeepSeek topped Apple's U.S. App Store free app download chart
Thomas Friedman: Yes, far from it.
Ezra Klein: People are used to imagining pink backpacks with buttons, but rarely understand black light factories or brand-new Huawei campuses. What is a black light factory? What is the experience of being inside one? How was the Huawei campus you visited? What impressions did this experience leave on you?
Thomas Friedman: A black light factory is a fully robotic factory, so it doesn't need lighting. Except for engineers coming in to clean the machines between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m., no lights are needed at other times. Nowadays, there are such black light factories all over China.
The Huawei campus was built in three years and accommodates 35,000 researchers, including the foreign researchers they hope to recruit. There are 100 different cafes within the campus, each building has unique design. There is also a monorail train looping around the beautiful lawn.
By the way, I have been to Huawei's headquarters in Shenzhen. We tried to strangle Huawei in the U.S., attempting to cut off their chip supply, they almost got into trouble. However, they walked out of the困境 through innovation.
I know that on the day Josh Hawley declared that China cannot innovate, Huawei announced record profits on CNBC and showcased some very new technologies.
Republican anti-China senator Josh Hawley of the U.S.
Once again, my job is to objectively view the world. The reality of the world is: China has achieved many accomplishments. If you haven't noticed its existence, you've really missed something.
Ezra Klein: Let's focus on the current policies. Talking about trade policies is almost impossible now, but after a week of turmoil in the global market, the U.S. bond market began to loosen, and the Trump administration chose to yield, suspending tariffs on countries that had not yet retaliated, but doubling the tariffs on China.
China is retaliating. As Vance and others have outlined, the core view of the Trump administration can be summarized as: We need to rebuild everything here in the U.S., not in friendly countries to the U.S. The Biden administration has adopted the "friend-shoring" strategy.
However, current U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Luetkemeyer talked about his vision and stated that the method to achieve this goal is to impose high tariffs, especially on China, but frankly, on the rest of the world as well. Because their goal is to pull all manufacturing back to the U.S., thereby enhancing our ability to compete with China.
There is a series of studies that propose such arguments: China dominates global manufacturing, although it is not the only manufacturing powerhouse, it is leading. And we dominate the world's financial architecture. According to this theory, Trump and his team are trying to regain control of manufacturing from China.
Do you think their theory holds water?
Thomas Friedman: Hiring a bunch of clowns to run things, don't blame the whole circus!
According to their theory, on the first day, impose heavy tariffs on China.
But their brains only think one step ahead. On the second morning, you need a strategy to utilize the time gained by tariffs to build the industrial foundation you want?
What are they doing now? Trump built a trade wall against China, but in turn, he ruined Ford's business! Today, Ford's stock was downgraded, and the stock price fell to $7.5. Why is that? Because Ford did everything a rational company should do, everything we hoped it would do.
What did Trump do? He brought his radical right-wing supporters and said: We don't do electric vehicles here. Electric vehicles are for sissies, we only do tough industries.
Look at how Ford is now, we want future generations of kids to design next-generation electric vehicles, robots, autonomous driving, and clean energy, but these people keep forcing kids to tighten screws on assembly lines.
Before I came here, I read that Trump wanted to reopen coal-fired power plants. He loves "drill, baby, drill!" but this makes no sense.
Trump built barriers against China, which I fully support. But what are you going to do behind the wall to catch up with the U.S.? It shouldn't be attacking American companies that don't meet the standards of the radical right.
The Trump administration focused on how many billions of dollars they could cut from research funds at American universities to punish their diversity strategies. In the limited time to catch up with China, they shouldn't focus on this, but should double their investment in university research capabilities and the National Institutes of Health.
Instead, they cut funding for top scientific institutions. This is absurd, they are unreliable, just a bunch of clowns.
Ezra Klein: But you don't advocate building high walls against China. Your view is quite disruptive within the Democratic Party, that if you are a serious person, you would treat China the way we did Japan in the 1990s. By the way, that was when Trump proposed his own trade theory. For decades, his views on all issues have remained largely unchanged.
We treated Japan by bringing their car companies in and learning from them. With China, we brought in our manufacturers and they learned from us.
What you are essentially saying is: if we seriously consider China's progress in manufacturing, we should try to bring their factories in as a condition for accessing our markets, so we can learn from them.
Thomas Friedman: Exactly right. First, we can form a 50-50 joint venture with Xiaomi. Second, Xiaomi must establish a supply chain here. That means you can't just import all parts from China, but you need to establish a supply chain and factories here, just as China required foreign enterprises to do in the past.
I previously made a similar suggestion for Huawei. I told Huawei: okay, we allow you to lay networks and sell technology in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. We will observe you for three years to see how you handle data. If you perform well, we will give you more opportunities.
But we didn't give them any incentive to improve, neither a ladder nor a fallback option, but instead tried to destroy them. Now they left the U.S. and went to "work out" in China, possibly counterattacking us.
I can't remember exactly how much the tariffs on China are, maybe close to infinite. But regardless, if there is a strategy behind it that allows us to do the same thing, I fully support it.
But if the strategy is just to build walls that take us back to digging coal, relying on oil, strangling wind power and electric vehicle industries, it will be a disaster. This is the current problem.
Artificial intelligence will penetrate every aspect of life, from cars to toasters, to refrigerators, and even potentially integrated into the human body.
Ezra Klein: I often say that we have three goals in AI policy: ensure safety, accelerate speed, and make it exclusive to us.
And making it exclusive to us has always been the overriding goal. In every discussion under both the Biden and Trump administrations, this has been reflected. That is to say, to ensure safety, we have gone far beyond what is necessary because accelerating speed has become the overriding goal.
In fact, we are already in it. Next, the connection between the two branches of artificial intelligence in China and the U.S. will be cut. To a large extent, the two internet worlds have already separated. In the future, the world will present a fragmented pattern.
This phenomenon is also significant. According to multiple assessments, the U.S. may have a slight advantage over China in the field of artificial intelligence, but the gap is not significant. However, they are gradually gaining an important advantage we do not yet possess: that is, the digital architecture of the economic system, and the deep integration of the economy with manufacturing and other fields, especially in areas such as payment and communication, where these fields can quickly embed artificial intelligence technology.
When Elon Musk talked about turning the application formerly known as Twitter into a "universal application," his vision was precisely the reality that China has already achieved, those applications that integrate communication, payment, and many other functions. If artificial intelligence is embedded in them, as China is currently practicing, the speed of optimization throughout the economic field will significantly increase.
Thomas Friedman: My column theme is: China has deeply digitized. Today's China is a cashless society, and even beggars have QR codes in their bowls.
I visited one of China's emerging carmakers, ZEEKR, with my colleague Keith Bradsher. We delved into their design laboratory and witnessed designers creating 3D models for their new models and placing them in desert, rainforest, beach, and various scenarios under different weather conditions to comprehensively demonstrate their adaptability.
We asked him what software he was using, assuming it was a traditional CAD design tool, but he said it was an open-source artificial intelligence 3D design tool. He revealed that what used to take three months can now be completed in three hours.
From three months to three hours! It's precisely because they have such a highly digitized system that injecting artificial intelligence into it can optimize many processes.
That's why I am deeply concerned about the division of the world. I worry that the future world will be less stable and prosperous than the last four decades. Therefore, if I have to choose, I would advocate that China and the U.S. must join hands to jointly build a framework adapted to the new era, even if I am the only one voicing this opinion, I will persist in this view. Otherwise, China and the U.S. will fall into some kind of crazy artificial intelligence competition, which may eventually lead to both bankruptcy.
As we enter the age of general artificial intelligence, facing challenges such as climate change, artificial intelligence, and global order turbulence, I deeply feel that humanity must unprecedentedly learn to collaborate as a whole.
I fully agree with my friend Dov Seidman's view: "Interdependence is no longer our choice, but our current situation." The key lies in whether we will build healthy or sick interdependence. Humanity will rise together or fall together. But regardless, we are on the same boat. This is my view.
Ezra Klein: I'm not sure if this is true, but you are more knowledgeable than me in international relations and history. However, the rise and fall of nations can happen independently. Superpowers decline, and other countries may rise. Japan was once considered the next superpower, but now it has become an aging society facing many problems.
Looking at how the Trump administration burned away the world's confidence in the U.S. and called it a great process, I thought of a way of thinking: China's strength lies in manufacturing, while America's advantage is in the financial sector, yet America has always looked down upon it.
One lesson of history is: whoever controls the funds controls the world. The Trump administration believed that what they were doing was reclaiming manufacturing from China. I don't think they will succeed, but they will definitely create opportunities for China to gain our share of finance, because people will no longer trust us.
If we can impose tariffs on other countries at will and do whatever we please, they will try to extricate themselves from our financial dominance architecture. Although this is an extraordinary source of American power, if overused, people will voluntarily withdraw from it because they are voluntarily participating.
Trump announces tariff increases on multiple countries
China has a very complex payment structure and has the ability to lend large amounts of money. Currently, it is shaping itself into a more stable participant in international affairs and trying to build closer relationships with Europe, Japan, South Korea, and many traditionally tense countries.
Therefore, I think we may not rise and fall together. If you tell me that Trump is a "puppet" and there is evidence to support this, it will be hard for me to refute it. After all, besides a "puppet", who else would do such things?
Thomas Friedman: Right, let's get back to the main point: if we take trade seriously, what would we do?
First, we can tell China: you now produce about one-third of the world's products, this is unsustainable. You cannot manufacture everything for everyone, but you need to buy more goods from other countries.
Therefore, we can form a united front with the EU, South Korea, Singapore, Japan, the Philippines, and other allies, to jointly confront China on this issue. At the same time, tell China that over the next three years, we will gradually increase tariffs annually by 15%, 20%, and 30%. This way they can foresee future changes.
Behind this tariff wall, we will give them two choices: invest in opportunities in the U.S.; or take the ecosystem I mentioned seriously and provide incentives for our government and businesses. Do everything possible to create infrastructure and opportunities for the development of this ecosystem. This is the rational approach.
What did Trump do? He turned the situation into a confrontation between the U.S. and the entire world, with the entire world simultaneously confronting the U.S. He actually abandoned our biggest competitive advantage over China - our allies.
Ezra Klein: I want to point out a way of thinking that helps understand the current trade situation. People have been trying to construct a more complex framework than actual to explain Donald Trump's ideas. But in reality, such complexity does not exist.
Thomas Friedman: Exactly.
Ezra Klein: One of their focal points is the China issue. As you mentioned, China manufactures about one-third of the world's goods and is expected to increase this proportion to 45% in the 2030s. If I remember correctly, China's consumption accounts for approximately 12%.
Thomas Friedman: Correct, it's between 12% and 13%.
Ezra Klein: Even those who are skeptical of Sino-U.S. relations are shocked by the absurdity of Trump's trade policies. Trump tried to simplify all issues into a bilateral trade between the U.S. and other countries, as if Vietnam should maintain a trade balance with us. Will Vietnamese buy what we produce with advanced manufacturing? This way of looking at the world is completely illogical.
This idea of annoying all other countries along the way is really strange. When your greatest fear is that China is becoming a powerful alternative, you inadvertently reduce your appeal to other parts of the world.
Thomas Friedman: On my way here, Trump decided to suspend tariffs for 90 days and other measures. Lesotho, a small African country, no longer has to worry. But Trump didn't realize that the whole world, especially China, considers him unreliable.
Countries around the world have been observing everything happening here, witnessing Trump's meeting with泽连斯基 in the Oval Office, and seeing him tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement follow-up agreement he essentially negotiated with two closest neighbors.
They will also wonder two questions: first, how can our leaders still sit in the same room with this guy? We can't predict what he might say. Second, even if we reach an agreement with Trump, he might tear it up the next day.
Trump always thinks he's clever. Just like buying apartment buildings in Long Island, he can do whatever he wants. But this is big stuff, and countries no longer consider Trump a stable figure. His unpredict