highstakes

GYEONGJU, South Korea, Oct. 30 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump departed from South Korea on Thursday after a highly anticipated meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping that lowered the temperature on a simmering trade war with agreements on rare earth minerals, fentanyl, soybeans and tariffs.

The two leaders met for the first time since 2019 at Gimhae Air Base in the southeastern city of Busan, shortly after Xi arrived in the country for a three-day state visit to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

Speaking to reporters on his way back to Washington aboard Air Force One, Trump described the outlines of a trade deal that he said would be signed “pretty soon.”

According to the president, China agreed to take steps to stop the flow of precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl into the United States. In response, Trump said he halved the 20% fentanyl-linked tariffs he had imposed earlier this year.

“Based on [Xi’s] statements today, I reduced it by 10%. So, it’s 10% instead of 20%, effective immediately,” Trump said.

The reduction brings the overall tariff rate on goods from China from 57% to 47%, he said.

Beijing also agreed to resume purchases of American soybeans and set a one-year pause on its planned export controls of rare earth minerals. China dominates the production and processing of the metallic elements, which are crucial for manufacturing a vast array of high-tech products from smartphones to missiles.

“We have not too many stumbling blocks now,” Trump said. “We have a deal. We’ll negotiate at the end of a year, but all of the rare earth has been settled.”

No official announcement from either side has been released yet, but the U.S. president declared the meeting a “great success.”

“Overall, on the scale of from zero to 10, with 10 being the best, I would say the meeting was a 12,” Trump said.

One topic the two leaders did not discuss was Taiwan, Trump noted. Some analysts had expected Xi to exert leverage in an attempt to soften U.S. support for the self-governing island of 23 million, which China sees as a breakaway province.

“I’m relieved Taiwan apparently didn’t come up in today’s meeting,” Sean King, senior vice president and East Asia expert at New York-based consulting firm Park Strategies, told UPI.

However, King said that the trade deal does not represent significant progress from when Trump kicked off his global tariff scheme in early April, on what the White House dubbed “Liberation Day.”

“We’re seemingly no further along than where we were on Liberation Day,” King said. “Unlike friendly leaders, Xi gave Trump no golden gifts … Right now, for better or worse, it seems like not too much of major trade substance happened in today’s meeting.”

At the start of the meeting, the two leaders had a brief introductory exchange that was open to the media.

“Given our different national conditions, we do not always see eye to eye with each other and it is normal for the two leading economies of the world to have friction now and then,” Xi said.

Xi called on Trump to join him and “ensure the steady sailing forward of the giant ship of China-U.S. relations.”

“I always believe that China’s development goes hand in hand with your vision to make America great again,” Xi said. “Our two countries are fully able to help each other succeed and prosper together.”

After the meeting, Xi traveled to the nearby city of Gyeongju to take part in the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting. Trump attended the APEC summit on Wednesday, where he struck a trade deal with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and delivered a keynote address at a CEO luncheon.

Argentinian President Javier Milei’s party has pulled off a stunning win in the country’s legislative elections, according to early results, boosting his ability to push forward with his radical overhaul of the economy, including free-market reforms and deep austerity measures.

Milei’s party, La Libertad Avanza, scored 40.84 percent of the votes cast for members of Congress on Sunday, compared with 31.64 percent for the opposition Peronist coalition, early results showed.

The results were based on a count of more than 90 percent of ballots cast.

The midterm elections were the first national test of Milei’s support since he won office two years ago, and will help him maintain the support of United States President Donald Trump, whose administration recently provided Argentina with a hefty financial bailout but has threatened to pull away if the libertarian leader did not do well.

At La Libertad Avanza’s headquarters on Sunday, Milei hailed the party’s victory as a “turning point” for the country and promised to charge ahead with his reforms.

Beaming as his supporters cheered, he seized on the results as evidence that Argentina had turned the page on decades of Peronism that had brought the country infamy for repeatedly defaulting on its sovereign debt.

“The Argentinian people left decadence behind and opted for progress,” Milei said, thanking “all those who supported the ideas of freedom to make Argentina great again”.

Milei’s party triples seat count

In Sunday’s elections, half of the seats in the lower Chamber of Deputies, or 127 seats, and one-third of the upper Senate, or 24 seats, were up for grabs.

Milei said his party has now tripled its seat count, winning 101 seats in the lower house, up from 37, and 20 seats in the Senate, up from six.

The most surprising results of Sunday’s election were in Buenos Aires province, where Milei’s party clawed its way back from defeat in last month’s local elections to run neck-and-neck with the Peronists.

The province has long been a political stronghold for the Peronists, and the win for Milei’s party marked a dramatic political shift.

The strong showing in Sunday’s election ensures Milei will have enough support in Congress to uphold presidential vetoes, prevent an impeachment effort, and see through his ambitious plans for tax and labour reforms in the coming months.

To support Milei, the Trump administration offered a bailout potentially worth $40bn, including a $20bn currency swap, which is already signed, and a proposed $20bn debt investment facility.

Trump has threatened to pull away if his populist ally performed poorly, warning that “if he doesn’t win, we’re not going to waste our time, because you have somebody whose philosophy has no chance of making Argentina great again”.

There was no immediate comment from the White House on Milei’s win.

‘Unobjectionable, unquestionable’

Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo, reporting from Buenos Aires, said that Trump’s interest in Milei may have influenced the decisions of some of the voters.

“Certainly, the United States played a crucial role in the last stage leading to this election,” she said. “People here listened, and in a way, it may have convinced many to vote for Javier Milei’s party.”

The results were a surprise, she said, “after the president’s party lost by 14 points in the province of Buenos Aires last month to the Peronist opposition after one of the harshest austerity plans in this country’s history”.

Analysts said the stronger-than-expected showing could reflect fear of renewed economic turmoil if the country abandoned Milei’s policies, which, while painful at times, have succeeded in drastically slowing inflation.

Gustavo Cordoba, the director of the Zuban Cordoba polling firm, told the Reuters news agency that he was shocked by the results and thought they reflected public wariness over a possible return to the economic crises of past governments.

“Many people were willing to give the government another chance,” he said. “We’ll see how much time Argentine society gives the Argentine government. But the triumph is unobjectionable, unquestionable.”

Milei, a key ideological ally of Trump who has slashed state spending and liberalised Argentina’s economy after decades of budget deficits and protectionism, had a lot riding on Sunday’s elections.

Milei’s government has been scrambling to avert a currency crisis ever since the defeat by the Peronist opposition in a provincial election last month panicked markets and prompted a selloff in the peso – a move that led to the US Treasury’s extraordinary intervention.

A series of scandals – including bribery allegations against Milei’s powerful sister, Karina Milei – hurt the president’s image as an anticorruption crusader and hit a nerve among voters reeling from his harsh austerity measures.

Although the budget cuts have significantly driven down inflation, from an annual high of 289 percent in April 2024 to just 32 percent last month, many Argentinians are still struggling to make ends meet.

Price rises have outpaced salaries and pensions since Milei cut cost-of-living increases. Households pay more for electricity and public transport since Milei cut subsidies. The unemployment rate is now higher than when the libertarian president took office.

Los Angeles city leaders are at a critical juncture ahead of the 2028 Summer Olympics, with potentially hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars at stake.

They are in negotiations with LA28, the private committee overseeing the Games, for the use of the city’s police, traffic officers and other employees during the Olympics and Paralympics.

Millions of visitors are expected to pour into downtown L.A., the Sepulveda Basin and the Westside when the Olympics kick off in July 2028. Security, trash removal, traffic control, paramedics and more will be needed during the 17-day event and the two-week Paralympics the following month.

Under the 2021 Games agreement between LA28 and the city, LA28 must reimburse the city for any services that go beyond what the city would provide on a normal day. The two parties must agree by Oct. 1, 2025, on “enhanced services” — additional city services needed for the Games, beyond that normal level — and determine rates, repayment timelines, audit rights and other processes.

LA28 has billed the Games as a “no cost” event for the city. Depending on how “enhanced services” are defined, the city, which is in a precarious financial state, could end up bearing significant costs. One of the biggest expenses will be security, with the LAPD, as well as a host of other local, state and federal agencies, working together to keep athletes and spectators safe.

Overtime for Los Angeles police officers, and any other major expenses, would be acutely felt by a city government that recently closed a nearly $1-billion budget deficit, in part by slowing police hiring. The city continues to face rising labor costs and diminished revenues from tourism.

At the same time, President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, recently passed by Congress, includes $1 billion for security and planning of the Games. But what those funds will cover — and what will be covered by LA28 — are not yet known.

Against that backdrop, civil rights attorney Connie Rice sent a six-page letter dated July 17 to Mayor Karen Bass and other city leaders, asking questions about the enhanced services agreement and urging the city to take a tough stance. Rice said city staffers reached out to her because they were worried that the agreement wouldn’t adequately protect the city.

“Los Angeles faces multiple fiscal hazards that many current leaders negotiating this and other Olympics agreements, will not be around to face,” Rice wrote. “The City cannot afford an additional $1.5 billion hit in 2028 because city officials inadequately protected taxpayers in 2025.”

Rice’s letter asks if LA28 and the city have resolved differences about the definition of venue “footprints,” or perimeters around sporting events, with the footprint changing depending on whether it’s defined by a blast radius, a security perimeter or other factors.

The letter questioned why LA28 isn’t paying the city up front for costs, using money in escrow, and asked if LA28 has provided the city with a budget for security, transit and sanitation.

Rice, in an interview, said she wants to ensure the Games are indeed “no cost.”

Both Paul Krekorian, who heads Mayor Karen Bass’ major events office, and an LA28 representative declined to directly address Rice’s letter.

“The City and LA28 have been collaborating for years to ensure that all Angelenos benefit from the Games for decades to come,” said Krekorian. “While the [agreement] is currently under negotiation, we fully expect that LA28 will be successful in its fundraising efforts to deliver the Games.”

The city routinely provides police officers and traffic officers for major events, such as Dodgers games and the Grammy Awards. In 2022, the Rams reimbursed the city $1.5 million for resources it provided for the team’s Super Bowl parade, according to City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo.

Last month, Szabo’s office released a document on the city’s investor website outlining potential liabilities facing the city, including some related to the 2028 Games. The document noted that roughly $1 billion in security costs will have to be paid by the city if they are not covered by LA28 or the federal government.

Jacie Prieto Lopez, LA28’s vice president of communications, told The Times that security and other planning costs haven’t been finalized.

Rice’s letter questioned whether LA28 would cover the cost of security. Prieto Lopez didn’t directly answer when asked by The Times if LA28 will cover the LAPD’s expenses.

“We are grateful that the Administration and Congress recently appropriated $1 billion in security funding and we will continue to work with our partners at the federal, state and local levels, including the City of LA, to ensure a safe, secure and successful Games,” Prieto Lopez said in an email.

How the $1 billion from the Big Beautiful Bill is distributed will be determined by the Federal Emergency Management Agency through the Homeland Security Grant Program, which is focused on preventing terrorism and other threats.

Anita Gore, a spokesperson for the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, told The Times that she expects those funds to be managed by the state through the Homeland Security Grant process.

The Office of Emergency Services is the “coordination hub” for the Games and is overseeing a statewide task force focused on security, traffic management and more, Gore said.

At a recent hearing in Sacramento, LA28 Chief Executive Reynold Hoover said the nonprofit continues to push for federal support for the Games. He said the $1 billion recently approved by Congress will “help us with that initial funding requirements for security.”

Hoover told a Senate subcommittee in June that LA28 is asking the federal government to fully reimburse the public agencies that will provide critical security at the Games.

A representative for the Department of Homeland Security declined to answer questions about how the $1 billion will be used.

Trump’s mercurial nature and past attacks on California make it difficult for some city leaders to gauge how his administration will handle funding for the Games.

Rep. Nellie Pou of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the Congressional Task Force for Enhancing Security for Special Events, held a public hearing last month on preparing for the World Cup and Olympics. She told The Times that she has not received any specifics about the $1 billion.

“This administration has withheld and frozen other federal funding appropriated by Congress, so we cannot simply assume that World Cup or Olympic security funding will make it to our communities,” she said.

Krekorian, when asked about Pou’s concerns, said the city “is in direct communication with state and federal partners, as well as LA28, about the allocation of these funds.”

If we are going to make an overview of what is going on now through the lens of the so-called dangerous opportunity, we can list some challenges and opportunities that Iran and China both face through this tension. I will try to name challenges and opportunities.

Challenges

The first challenge is that the United States of America is in a big competition and rivalry against China, which is the main actor trying to compete against the Western order. The US tries to create a “burned land” within the Middle East by using the major strategy of balkanization. In this strategy, the United States attempts to create a weak, failed, chaotic space for China throughout the region to actually block any attempts to initiate the Belt and Road Initiative and land corridors from China to the western part of the world. You can see a clear idea of balkanization throughout the region, and of course, we can see this example in Syria. The main role that Israel and the United States try to duplicate in different parts of the region may be seen in Yemen, Iraq, and even Afghanistan. The challenge is that we will have a burnt land in the Middle East that actually makes it impossible to follow initiatives like the Belt and Road.

The second challenge could be an energy crisis in the Middle East. We know that China tries its best to mediate between Saudi Arabia and Iran to secure regional security and stability, and of course, energy stability within the Middle East and at the global scale. This crisis and tension, which Israel initiated through unprovoked actions, could lead to a worldwide energy crisis because Iran and Tehran have mentioned multiple times that there are different options available for Iran to affect the whole region if there is more tension or further attacks from any foreign actors, especially the United States or Israel.

The third challenge we can name is the corridor blockade or dead-end. We can name different initiatives and corridors made and created by the United States, such as I2U2, Quad, AUKUS, and of course IMEC, as initiatives to create a kind of blockade for China through maritime corridors. If the United States and Israel follow through with their goals in the current tension, there would be a kind of corridor blockade from the East to the West.

Another challenge we can name is about the Abraham Accords. China and Beijing should understand that this kind of alliance is not really just about Palestine or normalization with the Zionist regime; it is a big alliance and outsourcing of the regional order from Washington to Tel Aviv. In this regional order, which is totally supported and facilitated by Washington, the Middle East—or better said, Southwest Asia—would be a total ally of the United States. This could strongly affect the national interests of Beijing.

Last but not least, a challenge after the current tension between Iran and Israel is the possibility of initiating the next big conflict. Currently, we have two big open wounds from previous years: the Ukraine crisis and Palestine. The result and balance of power around these two hot zones will create a balance of power around a third hot zone, which is Taiwan. Therefore, the outcomes of Ukraine and Palestine will directly affect the Taiwan situation in the upcoming months and years.

Opportunities

The Chinese letter for crisis shows us that there is an opportunity in this kind of crisis. If we can name them:

The first opportunity is that supporting policy, especially for the nations of the region and the Global South, is simply being on the right side of history. Every actor who supports Palestine gains favorability within nations, especially in the Global South. As you can see, Iran has gained much soft power within the current tension with Israel in the region. This is a real comeback from the Arab Spring for Iran’s image in the eyes of the Middle Eastern people. Actually, China may understand that in the region there is a deep real desire to resist Israel. Every actor who stands against the operations of Israel will gain and has gained much favorability in the region and even the world. This is the big, big side of the resistance idea.

The second opportunity during this kind of conflict is that Iran can show and test its military capability against the Western alliances. It is not a clear and accurate vision if you consider the current situation and tension as a simple war between Tehran and Tel Aviv. Tehran, in the current 12-day war, stands and fights against Washington, the whole NATO, and some regional actors. Iran has not only avoided defeat in this situation but also tried to push the whole Israel and Western alliances to a ceasefire point.

The third opportunity is the chance and moment for almost all old actors in the region to shift their ideas towards a strong region without the US. It seems that even countries like Saudi Arabia and other regional states are thinking about a region without the presence of the United States. The good news is that if Iran and its allies can play a good role during the conflict and upcoming tension, there could be a regional order emerging from the regional actors, and there would be no vacuum of power.

The next opportunity I want to mention, after the experience of this war, is really important for Beijing nowadays and the current situation of the international order. China could not find any other strategy or reliable partner within the region with the capability of military, social soft power, enormous energy resources, and favorable geography other than Iran.

Conclusion

It seems that the fundamental strategy of the United States during the Trump administration for the Middle East, called “peace through strength,” is just a choice between two options: surrender or war. Surrender would mean a regional order controlled by Tel Aviv. Iran, as it seems, is trying to prepare itself for full-scale war. As mentioned in the early stage of this note, during the tension, this is a period of rebalancing of actors’ powers. Therefore, the ability and will of order-writers like China to play a role in this conflict will determine the upcoming role of this actor in the new world order.