Promethean Action’s Susan Kokinda gives a good recap of Chinese Chairman Xi’s state visit, including the nuanced respect and policy alignment visible between President Trump and Chairman Xi.
In essence, the comments by Marco Rubio about putting USA sovereign policy ahead of prior USA multilateral global policy, are a baseline for Chairman Xi to pivot his own interpretations of Trump’s policy objective. With U.S policy focused on America’s interests and Beijing policy focused on China’s interests, there is no room for conflict, only terms.
This episode argues that media outrage over a White House “autopen” joke and criticism of Trump’s summit with Xi Jinping obscures a deeper shift: Trump is dismantling a 50-year geopolitical framework associated with Henry Kissinger. It contrasts Chatham House’s “China Rising, America in Decline?” panel and its Thucydides Trap framing—linked to Graham Allison—with Xi’s evolution from posing the trap as an open question to asserting it “can be overcome” after Trump’s UN speech and claimed actions in Iran, Venezuela, the Shield of America, and the Greenland Treaty, alongside a push for reindustrialization.
The script also highlights a UN Board of Peace session on Gaza focused on reconstruction led by Gazans and a new security structure involving Muslim-country troops, presenting it as ending “outside forces” control. It notes Rubio’s permanent dual role as Secretary of State and National Security Advisor and frames his stance as reversing Kissinger’s legacy. WATCH:
President Trump emphasizes the importance of the western hemisphere and Latin America by participating in a second meeting of the “Shield of Americas” team. The objective of the assembly is to secure the western hemisphere, coordinate economic, political, and security efforts among participating countries to strengthen judicial practices, improve investment opportunities, and build hemispheric partnerships. The shield emphasizes intelligence sharing and coordinated operations to locate and dismantle drug cartel networks and associated criminal infrastructure.
Structure and Operations: The Shield of the Americas functions as a head-of-state level organization, working closely with the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition (A3C), which is led by USSOUTHCOM and focuses on military and security operations against cartels. The coalition’s operational arm, the Americas Counter Cartel Conference, brings together defense and security ministers from member states to coordinate strategies against drug trafficking, organized crime, and threats to critical infrastructure. Participating countries gain access to U.S. military equipment, training, intelligence, and surveillance capabilities, including support from the U.S. Space Force’s Tactical Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and Tracking system.
Promethean Action’s Barbara Boyd recaps some of last week’s geopolitical events and activities of both President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Good video for those catching up.
President Trump reacts to Mark Carney’s push to align Canada with the EU, calling it “laughable” and warning that if it’s hostile the U.S. could impose heavy tariffs or even halt trade with Europe. The episode argues the administration is securing the southern border through Marco Rubio’s Latin America trip and “Operation Shield of the Americas,” linking Peru’s participation and Keiko Fujimori’s election to an intensified campaign against cartels, drug production and trafficking, and Chinese influence.
Boyd’s recap frames Carney as a longtime opponent of U.S. interests, citing his Bank of England role, “green” credit agenda, and support for Ukraine, and claims Canada-EU plans target Arctic control and the U.S. northern defense line. It ends with Trump announcing a permanent U.S. presence in Greenland and warning Canada to curb fentanyl labs and criminal networks. WATCH:
Secretary of State Marco Rubio continues to impress; however, his response to the Wall Street Journalist narrative engineer is absolutely brilliant.
Following visits to Colombia and Ecuador, Secretary Rubio is in Peru today to discuss the “Shield of The Americas”; a joint collaboration and intensely strategic partnership between the United States and Latin American countries to eliminate corruption, arrest narcotraffickers and remove all corrupt elements.
During a news conference with Peruvian President Keiko Fujimori, Secretary Rubio addressed the Peruvian people in both English and Spanish as he explained the specifics of the Shield and what the partnership entails. During the Q&A session of the press conference, a Wall Street Journal narrative engineer asked a question about sovereignty and the U.S. acting unilaterally if Peru didn’t agree to address the threat.
Essentially, Rubio responded by telling the journalist to stop working for the ‘Bureau of Imaginary Problems’. I have prompted the video at the point of the question and then provided the transcript from that moment to the end. The overall English audio-dub is not bad, so the entire presser is well worth watching:
[Transcript] – QUESTION: Vera Bergengruen with The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Secretary, you have stressed that the members of the Shield of the Americas are sovereign partners. But if one of these governments refuses to act against one of these groups that Washington deems a terrorist threat, does the U.S. reserve the right to act unilaterally, including here in Peru?
And President Fujimori: (Via interpreter) The question wanted more information about the partner of the Shield of the Americas. This will include to collaborate with the United States here in the country.
SECRETARY RUBIO: I’ll answer that question in English and Spanish. I don’t know if you guys heard it. Basically, the gist of the question is, if you’re a member of the Shield and refuse to act, does the United States – will the United States act unilaterally?
Well, if we were going to act unilaterally, why would we need the Shield? We’re not – if we were interested in acting unilaterally, we have the capacity to act unilaterally. The reason why we’re not doing it is because we want to do it with our partners. It’s the most effective way to do it. For us to confront transnational criminal groups, we need to do it inside the sovereign territory of countries, and we want to partner with those countries. It’s in their interest to do it. That is why we have the Shield. That is why the Shield exists.
People make up these problems that don’t exist. They’re getting ahead of themselves with these – these ridiculous sort of things that no one’s even contemplating. The bottom line is the reason why we have a Shield is because we choose to act in partnership with our partners. So it’s very simple. This is not very complicated; let me explain this to you. It’s a very, very simple equation. We have a country that says we want to defeat these criminals, these terrorists, these evil, despicable human beings; we want to defeat them. We want to work with America to defeat them. And so we say, of course we want to work – what should we say to them? No, we don’t want to work with you? No, we’d like you not to do anything about these groups?