Edward Lawrence, you know him from the Fox Business Network. Edward, thank you so much for joining me here on the Brian Kill Me Show. Mary, thanks for having me.
So much to talk about. Where should we start? How about the president leaving today to head to China? And well, tell us first: what's the focus of this trip? Because he's bringing a lot of CEOs with him, isn't he?
He is. And the president has been doing what the administration is now calling commercial diplomacy around the globe. And he has these CEOs in tow. And he looks for America-first policy related to how can we improve America's business. You know, one of the CEOs, there's about 16 of them that are going with him.
I mean, huge names starting Tim Cook from Apple. Elon Musk is going. We know him from Tesla, as well as Jane Fraser from Citibank, Qualcomm. The CEO of Boeing is going.
Now, some of these companies may see a boom when they leave. For example, we are expecting Boeing to get an announcement in China that China's making a large purchase from the airliner. We're also soon to see the president try and push soybeans. We know that the Chinese love America. They're one of the largest consumers of soybeans around the globe.
And they're buying 25 million tons of soybeans. That's the agreement that has been made between starting this year going through 2028. The President wants them to up that.
So there is a very big commercial aspect to this. Also, Iran is going to be on the list. That's something China wants to talk about because they import 90 or about 80 to 90 percent of the oil from Iran goes to China, and they get it at a severe discount.
So, what's happening now is China, their energy costs are increasing because they're having to buy at full price on the open market. China seems to be straddling the fence here, playing both sides, right? Because they have incredible influence over Iran. Obviously, Iran needs them because of what you just said. China buys so much of their oil.
So, what happens, though, if President Trump tries to get a cut? Of that oil that is coming out of Iran. I would assume he's going to try to somehow make sure that America benefits from that because we're the ones doing the hard lifting with Iran, right? We're the ones who are leading the charge. We're the ones that are spending the money in order to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon to basically destroy all of the surrounding countries, if not further.
So, how does that affect China if we're going to benefit from it?
Well, and he has a blueprint for this, right? Venezuela.
So, when Maduro was arrested by the United States, the new leader, Darcy Rodriguez, is working with the president, where the U.S. is now taking the Venezuelan oil and selling it on the open market, taking some of its sort of a finder C, if you want to call it, for the United States, but most of it going back to Venezuela to rebuild the country. He wants to bring that plan, or that plan has been working in Venezuela, that could be used in Iran if he could find a leadership that would work with them. Sure, the Chinese would be very nervous about this going forward, but they also have their Large importer. First of all, they are not energy self-sufficient.
They are a large importer of oil. They import something like 11 million barrels a day.
So they do need oil. They get it from Russia. They get it on the open market. They used to get it from Venezuela. They no longer get that.
And then they get it from Iran, which has now severely been curtailed in trying to get the oil from that. Yet, this is a game that Chinese has been playing both sides. They would like to see an end to this. They would like to see that Iranian oil flow again to China.
So it'll be very interesting to watch the conversations and the maneuvering from the Chinese where they don't want to upset President Trump too much, but yet they want to get their agenda through. And their agenda is multifaceted. It's not just this energy part. China really wants the most advanced semiconductor chips from the United States. The president has blocked that from NVIDIA.
It's very interesting, not on the list of CEOs going to China is Jensen Wong from NVIDIA.
So China, that's the eye on the ball for China, is artificial intelligence. The energy stuff they can weather, but it'll be interesting to see how the conversations go between this push and pull for energy technology. You know, it's so wrapped up with Iran, obviously, a lot of this, because energy, because all of this requires energy. All of this, this AI, and all of the move forward into the future with being the first ones with AI and the chips and all this stuff requires energy, which is why you're seeing so many people in small-town America where there used to be a farm not wanting data centers and things like that because it sucks up the water and the electric.
So, Iran is deeply involved in all of this because of the energy aspect of it. But I would assume that President Trump doesn't want that to be the focus. He doesn't want to talk about Iran. He wants to talk about what this trip is supposed to be about with. A summit on technology and all the things that you were just talking about with the chips and all that other stuff.
So. How can the president avoid that, or is that really going to be part of this? What do you think? Yeah, and that's been the problem: Iran is starting to dominate this conversation. And China had originally come out last week and said we would like to see this finished by the time President Trump visits China.
That has not happened. And Iran also knows this. They're also trying to not give President Trump a win going into China, and that could play into the strength dynamic. As President Trump is coming in on a strong footing, Iran is trying to erode that strong footing by saying, hey, look, you still have this problem over here. But for the U.S., the deliverables are status quo in terms of the rare earth minerals being exported around the globe.
China had stopped that last year, early last year, and sort of put the world on notice that they control 90% of the processing of rare earth minerals and now about 60% of the mining.
So you've seen, again, this diplomacy, commercial diplomacy, President Trump going around the globe, gobbling up, making agreements. To do rare earth minerals to put the U.S. on good footing going forward.
So, the U.S. wants to keep this status quo, keep the rare earths flowing. They also, the U.S. side also wants Boeing. They want to see that big purchase of airliners.
They also want to see more soybeans being bought. From the Chinese side, they want that technology. They want to see the semiconductor.
So, going into this meeting, Iran was not the top priority for China. That may have shifted, but at the moment, it was not the top priority for this meeting. It was getting American technology and keeping the status quo because China right now is stealing intellectual property from U.S. companies in droves. None of those rules have changed.
So, anything that goes into China, any company that goes into China, will basically anticipate that they're going to lose some sort of intellectual property going and make that adjustment.
So, China wants to keep the status quo on that front, but wants this technology to be imported.
So, why wasn't the CEO of NVIDIA invited on this trip? It seems like he would be one of the first ones on the list. Yeah, and I think. I think it has to do with the fact that the U.S. is not going to lift that embargo of the most advanced chips.
The president has made it clear the U.S. needs to keep its competitive advantage when it comes to AI around the globe, especially with China not being a good actor when it comes to hacking.
Well, if you add AI to that mix, it could get a lot worse.
So he wants to make sure that the most advanced chips, the president does, most advanced chips do not go into the wrong hands.
So I think that Jen Sen Wong is selling in droves the less powerful chips in China. But at this point, there's no advantage for NVIDIA at the moment to go in because those most advanced chips are not going to be sold there.
So you mentioned Cuba, Venezuela. President Trump is reshaping the global landscape, right? And he's doing it through what he knows best: economics. Right, he's using the forces of economics in order to reshape the power structure in the world. China lost a lot when we took over Venezuela.
When he went into Venezuela, picked out Maduro.
Now, all that Venezuelan oil comes into the Gulf of America. Cuba's next. He's made no bones about Cuba being next, right? That would have been China's base in our hemisphere, not far at all, obviously, from the United States.
So, with Trump reshaping the world that way, two questions. Number one, does that put China in a defensive position? And well, let's do that one first. Does that put China in a defensive position? Yeah, no, he's absolutely reshaping the influence that China had, which was growing in our hemisphere.
They had a foothold in Venezuela, and they were expanding their ties in Venezuela. In Cuba, they had expanded a submarine base or a ship, I'm sorry, a ship base that could be used for submarines in Cuba. That's on our doorstep.
So, and the president is certainly reshaping all of that. For the most part, the Chinese have been driven out of Venezuela at the moment. Should the Cuba, the negotiations are going on behind the scenes between the U.S. and Cuba, should that sort of rise up to get the attention after the Iran situation is taken care of, that would certainly then push China out of this sphere of influence. And they have to be looking at this.
What I've noticed, or what I've seen with China, because I do keep up with some of these things, is China is making more deals now in Africa.
So they have originally through their Belt and Road initiative, they exported sort of their money, but then they made unrealistic benchmarks for the countries to pay back that money. And when those unrealistic benchmarks were not met, China then confiscated that. They did that with ports, specifically in Africa.
So they're trying to control the entire supply chain.
So I've seen greater now involvement with China in Africa because maybe the Chinese are looking to say, okay, we've lost. What's happened in Venezuela? We've lost what's happened in the hemisphere closest to the United States. Let's take what is available to us at a faster pace, and then we can come back and see what we can do about the United States.
So I have seen more moves from China in Africa. The second question, the changes that President Trump is invoking through his economic pressure and his economic moves, which is different than any president before him. He's approaching the world order totally differently. Can it last past his presidency? Or is this something that can be easily undone by a Democrat just come in and just executive order after executive order, totally upending it all?
Well, it can easily be undone. Look at what happened with the Biden administration. You saw the disaster that happened when he flooded the area with money. We moved out of Iran. We made deals with Iran, sending them money.
You saw exactly what happened. Iran's influence started to increase, and then we had problems with the Houthis. We had problems with Hezbollah. We had problems with the proxies.
So you completely see. What President Trump was doing in his first term. He's trying to replicate that in his second term in a bigger scale. The answer is yes. It could be undone by another president.
It depends on what the American voters decide to do. Or another president could come in and say, hey, look at the gains that were made by President Trump. Let's keep those gains going.
So it depends on the person, I think, who comes in. But clearly, you're seeing Democrats move farther to the left. And it's sort of an anti-Trump agenda.
So whatever he did, it doesn't matter what it is, blinders on, we'll just undo it. And I think that you might see that should a Democrat win in 2028. If a Republican wins, say J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio or one of the other Republicans who rises up, they will see the gains that the president's making. Because what's happening now, if you take a step back, the investments the president talks about, the trillions of dollars, they will eventually become manufacturing that opens facilities here for long-term growth in our industry.
Now, that process is taking a little bit longer than the President thought. You know, the investments made last year are starting to come online maybe summer, end of summer this year.
So you're going to really start to see a boom, and he has set this leg of the tripod up so the economy can really take off. He's got trade deals, he's got deregulation, and he's got lower taxes. And that has been his success formula in this first administration, and he's carrying that through the second administration. I have about a minute and a half left, and you had mentioned soybeans and farmers. I would like to see more farmers thrive, then see their farms plowed over for data centers and townhouse and condos.
So is there anything else? Because I think that that's a block that really needs attention. Is there anything that the President is doing to help farmers that we haven't really heard about?
Well, so yes, yes and no. The President loves farmers, as we know, in this country, and he has tried to bolster them where they had issues. They offered the $30 billion loan guarantees for the farmers. They're looking at increasing the ethanol portion of gasoline.
Now, part of that ethanol is made with corn, which then directly helps farmers.
So if he expands the time that the U.S. is able to use ethanol and expands the areas that are able to use ethanol, that would also help farmers. And it could possibly push up the price of some food. But I talked to the Agriculture Secretary who said that she would like to see maybe some farmers have a little bit more money, but it won't significantly increase the price of food.
So there's a balance that goes on. But again, to keep that core heartland going and producing food for the U.S. people. We don't want to get into a lot of people. Position where we're reliant on China or another country for our food supply.
And that is another thing the President is keen on to make sure that we're self-sufficient.
So it's very interesting to see the moves that he's making. And one of the things the U.S. has realized is that the soybean farmers are reliant on China.
So when China has used them as a pawn earlier this year, the President stepped in quickly to try and fix that and stop that.
So I think the President is very keen on farmers and he's very sensitive to their issues. And he wants to put America first, but also farmers first. Yeah. It's just so sad to see what's happening. I'm in the People's Socialist Republic of New Jersey.
That was once the garden state. And I think there's approximately like two farm stands left in the entire state. That's it. They've all been plowed over. And didn't they try to eminent domain one of them?
They do it all the time. Eminent domain for low-income housing. It's everywhere, and it's really, really sad. Edward Lawrence, thank you so much for making us smarter. It's just fascinating.
Thank you for your time. Mary, thank you. I appreciate it.
