Trump States He Will Be Meeting with Presidents Xi and Putin; In the Meantime, Many Dangers

Yesterday President Donald Trump stated, “I will be meeting with President Xi. I will be meeting with President Putin also.” Implying that the occasion will be the June G20 meeting in Japan, Trump made this emphatic announcement at a joint press conference this afternoon with his guest, Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban, at which occasion Trump was hit with raucous questions from the reporters, most all focussed on the fraught situations of U.S. tariffs with China, and confrontation with Iran.

In the spirit of Trump’s announcement, Sec. of State Mike Pompeo is now on his way to Sochi, where he is deployed to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov today, and also, it is expected, to meet with President Vladimir Putin directly. Also in Sochi yesterday, Lavrov met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Their talks concerned not only preparations for President Xi Jinping’s upcoming June visit to St. Petersburg, for the Russian International Economic Forum, but how to further integrate the Eurasian Economic Union with the Belt and Road Initiative, into what the Russian Foreign Ministry today called, “building a Greater Eurasian Partnership.”

This pace of Great Power diplomacy is sorely welcome, given the many dangers now threatening to explode into terrible crises.

What is required is the highest level of collaboration, to start solving pressing problems. For the Pompeo visit to Sochi, the question of stopping the threat of nuclear war will be uppermost, according to the Russians. Foreign Ministry spokesman Sergei Ryabkov said bilateral talks are the focus for extending the START treaty, which runs out in 2021. In Trump’s phone call with Putin earlier this month, Trump said he wants a nuclear-arms control deal that will “get rid of some of the tremendous firepower that we have right now.”

This level of thinking is also urgent to bring to the trade relations between the United States and China. The true mutual interest of these two powers, involves re-setting trade relations between themselves and with other nations, in terms of common interest economic goals ranging from joint space missions, to joint earthly tasks—especially the mission of modernizing the infrastructure and productive platform of North and Central America. In other words, the spirit of the New Silk Road in action.

However, for the moment, President Trump is very much taken with the “math” of tariffs and money. He extolled how tariffs on China are good for the U.S. at the White House , and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representatives posted more details on the timing and rates of the newly announced U.S. tariffs against China. China also announced new tariffs on $60 billion worth of (some 5,000) imported items from the U.S., ranging in rates from 5 to 25 percent. Trump said, “I love the position we’re in….we’re taking in billions of dollars.” He said that, “We do much less business with China than they do with us…” He reported on how a small part of the customs revenue—maybe $15 billion—will then go to U.S. farmers, until things are worked out.

Fortunately, the door remains open for diplomacy to change this approach. Though no exact schedule is arranged, U.S. Trade Rep. Robert Lighthizer is invited to Beijing, according to Larry Kudlow, Trump’s Director of the National Economic Council, speaking last night on Fox News Sunday.

The circumstances cry out for the wisdom of Lyndon LaRouche, who said to always proceed from the highest overview. Beware of the geopolitical traps. What can be the crucial element in furthering the potential for world diplomacy, right now, is the release this week of a mass run of the LaRouchePAC memorial document for Lyndon LaRouche. Today’s release states:

“LaRouchePAC has just released 10,000 copies of the 64-page pamphlet, `Retoring the Soul of America: The Exoneration of Lyndon LaRouche’ for circulation throughout the United States.

The distribution of this pamphlet in hard-copy, and electronic format, is the leading edge of the fight to effect a profound shift in U.S. and world policy, not merely to right a historical wrong, but to move into the future on a profound footing of cultural and scientific progress informed by a passion for truth, beauty and justice.”