A Global Threads geopolitical round-up: some extra-juicy stories
A Critical minerals non-event; France to defend Greenland; Rubio congratulates Russia; spilled beans about the inner workings of China and Xi Jinping's family; and economic gloom.
Donald Trump is a master negotiator. So it is no surprise that he has managed to pull of yet another coup: a deal with China that is ‘done’. Magnets, rare earths, access to US universities for Chinese students.
It’s a beautiful deal. If you are trying to generate news. Another way of looking at it, is that it takes us back about a month to exactly the same terms that had been agreed in Switzerland.
Yes, it’s news. But it’s meaningless - beyond confirming the TACO hypothesis: the US blinked again; China didn’t need to.
Some might say that Trump’s way of doing things by projecting aggression but demonstrating submission, might damage US standing around the world. Others might just be starting to think that the second Trump presidency, like the first, is mainly noise - and little substance.
The most interesting here: Beijing have inserted a drop-dead date allowing them to pull out (again) if Trump does not play ball. That’s what’s known has keeping strategic options open.
There are, of course, some exceptions. European defence spending is one; so too is the growing anxiety about US judgement when it comes to global affairs.
Things are bad enough for Emmanuel Macron to announce that he will stop off in Greenland on his way to a G7 meeting in Canada to counter possible US ‘predation’ towards the island. That’s a polite way of saying he’s stopping off to show that France will stand alongside Greenland and Denmark if Trump orders an invasion, or the use of force against a NATO ally.
No wonder many Russian officials think that ‘the collective defence obligations enshrined in the NATO treaty no longer have practical force’ - as Bruno Kahl, head of the Federal Intelligence Service, said this week.
If you want a concrete example of how surreal times have become, you could do worse than visit the State Department homepage.
It’s not hard to see why European officials, not to mention many of their peers around the world, think the US has lost its mind.
It’s Russia National Day today (12 June).
Even to Russians, its a pretty rubbish day of celebration. It marks the date of the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1990.
It’s not an ‘independence day’; it’s not a ‘victory over others’ day; it’s a mouthful - and a nice day off in June for Russians. But it is not one that troubles historians or those who want to indulge their sense of nostalgia.
So it’s a surprise to see the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, popping up to offer a public declaration of celebration.
‘On behalf of the American people’, states Rubio, ‘I want to congratulate the Russian people on Russia Day.
The United States remains committed to supporting the Russian people as they continue to build on their aspirations for a brighter future.’
You’d think he might mention the war; or Ukraine; or call for Russia to stop slamming drones into civilian targets.
Or, better still - given there is absolutely nothing to gain - why not just not post anything at all?
In other news, those of us who look at China and Eurasia had something of a seismic shock - thanks to the loose tongue of Belarus’ First Deputy Prime Minister Nikolai Snopkov.
He spoke (very indiscretely) about the meeting last week between President of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko and President of China Xi Jinping in Beijing,
In comments to Belarus TV-1, Snopkov got carried away and spoke about non-public parts of the meeting. That was bad enough (for his career); but some of the revelations were fascinating.
‘My friend, we have a special relationship, so our lunch today will be a family lunch’, Xi told Lukashenko - who has long been Putin’s closest ally on Russia’s western flank.
So, XI went on
for the first time in history, my daughter will join such a lunch with a foreign leader.
That’s Xi Mingze (習明澤) who rarely appears in public and about whom little is known, beyond the fact that she studied at Harvard. Her appearance at a formal occasion like this is naturally intruiging.
Nikolai Snopkov might not be able to come to the phone for a while
Snopkov kept on talking
‘What do you think, what were the relations and the atmosphere behind the visit, meeting and a lunch with not only Xi Jinping, but also Mrs. Peng Liyuan [wife of Xi Jinping] and their daughter?’
‘It was a meeting of two friends, two leaders and two persons with the same energy. This is not empty rhetoric. They share unanimous views on life, politics, development and responsibility for their people. The meeting was heart-warming, marvellous and fantastic.’
Snopkov might like to take a short break. Or a long one.
The last bit of sunlight to share with you is the macroeconomic picture painted by the World Bank in its Global Economic Prospects report for June 2025.
‘Only six months ago, a “soft landing” appeared to be in sight’, says the report.
‘The global economy was stabilizing after an extraordinary string of calamities both natural and man-made over the past few years. That moment has passed.’
Warming to their theme, the authors don’t pull their punches.
‘The world economy today is once more running into turbulence. Without a swift course correction, the harm to living standards could be deep…
In short, many of the forces behind the great economic miracle of the last 50 years—when per capita GDP in developing countries nearly quadrupled and more than 1 billion people escaped extreme poverty - have swung into reverse.
The World Bank could, of course, be wrong.
So too could the legendary banker Jamie Dimon, who told listeners at a Morgan Stanley conference on Tuesday that ‘I think there’s a chance real numbers will deteriorate soon.’ Maybe he’s bluffing, to get people to move across to his own outfit at JP Morgan.
Or maybe we should be steeling ourselves for a tricky few months ahead.
We’re in desperate need of good news and of hope.
With continued suffering on an unimaginable scale in Gaza, a tragic plane crash in India this morning, no sign of peace in Ukraine, and a new report yesterday that charts the deteriorating global situation of rising numbers of conflicts and notes that violence against civilians is becoming more common and more severe, maybe we should take a leaf out of Donald Trump’s book after all and celebrate anything that sounds positive.
More soon.