Episode 38- A Letter From China. A Conversation Steve Croll.

A closing China meets a scrambling West—and the balance of power looks different up close. We sit down with our Shanghai-based correspondent, Steve Croll to unpack how the city that once courted foreign CEOs now moves confidently without them, and why the assumptions that guided two decades of outsourcing no longer hold. From Hong Kong’s electric past to today’s tighter controls, the story tracks a deliberate strategy: master the tech, shift management in-house, then narrow the aperture for outside influence.

We follow Trump’s whirlwind through Asia to his meeting with Xi and ask the uncomfortable question: what do you negotiate with when your leverage is thin and your intel thinner? Rare earths sit at the heart of the contest. Beijing maintains the upper hand with export controls on gallium and germanium while the U.S. faces a five-to-seven-year march to rebuild processing. On fentanyl, our guest argues the uncomfortable reality that China could choke precursor flows if it chose, given its enforcement machinery. And on agriculture, American farmers still feel the sting as purchases swing toward Brazil after tariffs and retaliation reworked trade patterns.

This conversation isn’t nostalgia. It’s a field report on how power actually shifts: through supply chains, midstream chokepoints, and the quiet disappearance of foreign voices that once shaped policy choices. We map the practical path forward—reinvest in processing, deepen alliances, compress permitting timelines, and pair external pressure with domestic capacity. If you care about geopolitics beyond photo ops and headlines, this is the ground truth you won’t get from a motorcade. Subscribe, share with a friend who follows global trade, and leave a review with the one policy lever you think matters most.

Transcript

Setting The Global Stage

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Greenfield Report with Henry R. Greenfield, your gateway to understanding today's geopolitical landscape. With 50 years of experience across 10 countries, Henry shares expert insights on world affairs, offering practical solutions and engaging guest perspectives. Dive into the Greenfield Report for lively discussions on the issues that matter.

Why A Letter From China

Steve’s Hong Kong Beginnings

SPEAKER_02 0:24

This is Henry R. Greenfield reporting once again from Singapore, far away from the cold of Europe and the elections of the United States, which are taking place as we record our first letter from China. It has been noted that this week is a momentous one, and that last week's whirlwind tour by Trump culminating in the meeting with Xi Jinping is already old news. Such is the news cycle in the United States and even in Europe, where governments, especially in France, seem to come and go with far too much regularity. Still on the continent, as they say, the center is holding, with a center party firmly taking control in the Netherlands with their victory in last week's election. Perhaps sanity is not completely gone, and of course, the solid, plain-spoken, and always practical Dutch. Well, we'll leave it to them to show that there is still a way forward for the vast majority of normal people. Meanwhile, out here in Asia, we are still dealing with the fallout, and as noted, already putting it behind by the Americans, that is, who have, as they say, moved on to the next Trumpian triumph. Or is it the ongoing crisis, including the gerrymandering galore, as in California, changing its constitution on Prop 50, which we discussed in our previous episode of the Greenfield Report, and of course the loss of SNAP or food benefits for 42 million people in the richest country in the history of the world. And oh, how can we forget the loss of health care benefits for what is it? 15 million people? Yes, a lot on the minds of the average American this week as they go to vote. Well, with that in mind, we at the Greenfield Report feel that the reintroduction of a time-honored way of reaching into a country that is perhaps the most unknown by outsiders these days, but the most critical for all of us, maybe even more than the hijinks of President Trump would lead you to believe about the good old USA is the People's Republic of China. Over the past 40 or 50 years since the reopening of China, there had been thousands of books written on reading the so-called tea leaves and what is China today at that moment. And this was all followed closely for decade after decade until it began to slow after Xi Jinping became chairman of this amazing country in 2013, whose very name, the name of the country, Zheng Wu, or the center of the universe. So you know how the Chinese ultimately look at themselves, or at least their leaders, ranging back 5,000 years, and they have done this over the millennia to this very day. From 2013 onward, the number of foreigners began to go down, then COVID cut off the tap. And before you knew it, there were literally few to none, especially Caucasians, who were replaced by their mainland Chinese counterparts. Emerging from COVID, which China did solely and then with great pain, there are, if any, fewer and fewer foreigners. So how can it be that to have almost no one on the ground, no one with decades and decades of experience, not an academic, not some diplomat sitting in their lovely villa in Beijing, but someone who has been there and as amazingly 40 or 50 years later, is still there. An American in Shanghai. That should be the stuff of a movie at this point. And with that, let me introduce our newly minted correspondent in Bon Vivant from all the way back to the year Donald Trump was born. Yes, he was born in the same year, 1946, if you are counting. Steve, welcome to the Greenfield Report in our letter from China.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

Hey, thanks. Thanks, Bob. That was quite an introduction. I'm not feeling so uh bon vivante today uh because of all the things that are going on in the States. Um it's um it's really hard to look at that from here um with the mass protests going on and and Trump tearing down the White House and so on and so forth. Um, but we just kind of soldier on. Um let me begin by kind of uh talking about the both of us and how we've been friends over the years. Um and that that that friendship spans 40 years right now, which is uh kind of mind-boggling. Um, and my age actually is kind of interesting, also. But um both of us, I think uh we found China from different directions. You know, you came in admirably uh from the Peace Corps where you served, and I came in as an ordinance officer uh based in Okinawa and traveling into to Vietnam. And when I uh was about to leave the army after four years, my uh commanding officer, a guy named Herbert uh Fulberg, asked me if I wanted to re-up. And I said, no, uh I'd I'd rather uh carry on and leave. I've had enough. And he said, Well, look at before you you know go back to the States, stop off somewhere. And that stop off was in Hong Kong. And as soon as I got to Hong Kong and wandering around the streets um for three or four days, I just decided this is this is where I want to be. I mean, the atmosphere was electric, it was still being run by the British. Um, in Hong Kong, we had everything. We had IEs, helpers, we had drivers, uh, we had our clubs, uh, we had an incredible social life. Um, and we were flying all over Asia. Um and I spent uh almost 30 years in Hong Kong. Uh I owned a uh plastics manufacturing operation in China, which had me going across the border into China and back on a regular basis. So I was getting a taste of China. Um and at that time, kind of unbeknownst to all of us, you know, in in Hong Kong, the cultural revolution was going on. I mean, and people were actually swimming across Mir's Bay and getting eaten by sharks, and they were sneaking under fences, anything to get away from China. Uh and that was, you know, that was my first experience in Hong Kong into China. We really didn't know what was going on. We used to go out and have picnics on the border and overlook the border into China. And of course, it was just all agrarian at that point. There was nothing at all. And so that was kind of my first uh introduction to China.

Shanghai Before The Boom

SPEAKER_02 7:24

Um, so I carried on with my business there for uh so Steve, can I interject just for a moment here? Sure. Um I I totally agree with you. As you know, I first went to China in 1981. And while this letter from China is not really about uh the past, but about actually what has happened uh recently in the future, I certainly recall exactly what you're saying that China was completely undeveloped, as you know, Shenzhen, which is now a city of 22 and a half million people or more, and the tech center of the entire country. At that time, as you just noted, it was nothing more than a few muddy fields that you could look at across from Hong Kong. Similarly, in Shanghai, as you will recall, there was nothing in Shanghai other than the traditional Bund, where you actually, I think you had some great times in the Bund back in the day before it was developed. Isn't that true?

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Yeah, we threw a we threw a party, uh, started out in Macau, and there were about 20 of us, and uh that party grew and grew, and we decided, and then we got uh moved from Belvista Hotel in Macau to the Peace Hotel in in Shanghai. And we went up there and threw the first black tie party uh they'd had in, I think, 40 years, and we brought in a dance band from London, and uh and Shanghai at that point was so it was so interesting. Uh the Bund was what there was nothing on the Bund. You know, now it's all you know, it's all uh fancy look shops. Um and we just had this three-day extravaganza up there, which pumped a little bit of money into the economy because we took uh I think 250 people up there for this was quite quite something. But anyway, so after my stint in uh Hong Kong, sold the business, and then my family came to me and said, Would you like to open up our business in in uh our business, Carl Reynolds, in China? And so I shipped up to uh Shanghai and began the very arduous process of establishing our business and setting up manufacturing in China. Um when I arrived in uh Shanghai during that period, it was around uh I think 2002. Um, China, China was still uh a fairly well Shanghai was a major city, always has been, but it was still adapting to Western tastes in terms of restaurants and pubs and uh and and foreigners in general. I mean, the the only people that were there were people like me that were CEOs of operations up there. And you you had all the American companies trying to set up and scramble to get into China. So, and those were very interesting times. Um, I could recount some stories of first uh uh coming to Shanghai and trying to find my way. It was like landing on a in a really in a foreign country after Hong Kong, uh, because we had none of the amenities that we have in Hong Kong had in Hong Kong. And I moved into the Xingbo Bingwan Hotel and I stayed there for six months and then uh decided to build an apartment on the top of a tutor mansion that had been uh obviously owned in the in the past uh by rich merchants, either Chinese or British. And I took the top floor, and there were there were probably 20 families below me because what they did uh when when the uh foreigners fled uh Shanghai, um I think in 1941 or thereabouts, uh they all left their houses and all the Chinese moved in. So that the houses were all chopped up into you know uh 20 rooms. And so I was I built this uh apartment in the top of this building. Anyway, so it was it was hard flooding in in Shanghai at that point, Bob.

Outsourcing Fever And Western Hopes

SPEAKER_02 11:31

So yeah, just a just a couple of things there. If anyone's ever seen the movie Empire of the Sun, uh if you saw that part, you saw the uh foreigners leaving as World War II uh commenced, end of 39, early 40. Uh, and exactly as Steve is saying, the Chinese took over those mansions. And when I came in 1981, uh exactly as Steve was saying, there were 10 or 12 families living where there used to be uh, you know, one foreign family. But during that time also, one of the other interesting parts for our viewers as they are or listeners, as it happens today, is that was the time of the great outsourcing, Steve. That was the time when George W. Bush was focused on Afghanistan and his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And what happened was over 8 million jobs from the United States and several more million from Australia, Japan, of course, Europe, all were outsourced to China. So what we had then was a hive of activity, whereas you said, there were a lot of foreign CEOs, but there was also a tremendous amount of investment. I would just like to note for everyone, at that time I was a director of a company called Autodesk. You may know it as your AutoCAD drawing and architectural software program. We had some meetings over then in the Bund, which was going up rapidly to 50, 60, 70 story buildings. And this was 2002, and Autodesk opened up a big center in Shanghai with 2,500 people. Basically, Steve, what I'm trying to get across here is everybody believed that China was going to change to become something more like the U.S., that even though Tiananmen Square had happened, that the economics of China would inevitably make China more Western. But I think as you found out, even while those days were incredibly go, go, go, and the glamour and the glitch come back. Not at all like when those lights were out days when you had your party on the Bund 25 years earlier at that point. But at that point, everybody thought it was going to be great in China, and it somehow did not work out that way. So why was that? Is it was it okay up until Xi Jinping came, Steve, or was that big change coming and it was inevitable?

SPEAKER_01 14:09

Oh yeah, you know, that change happened well before Xi Ping. Um the Chinese were really concentrating on um um seeing our technologies, and in order to enter business there, you had to open up your technologies, and that's what they required. And so basically, over a period of 10 years, um they acquired all this technology and they moved their own people into management positions, and you know, as a result, uh fewer and fewer and fewer foreigners were involved in in Chinese businesses. I mean, today I'd be very surprised if there were any um foreign CEOs uh of any in of any sort in businesses in in China. It's all the Chinese. And this was very well planned out. I mean, you know, this was this was their plan to to move us out and make it um get independent, basically, of uh American companies. And they've done that very, very successfully. Another uh typical long-term planning by uh the Chinese government.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

Well, Steve, that takes us to an uh interesting uh moment where you were talking to me the other day about how the Chinese view their adversaries. Obviously, they view Donald Trump as an adversary, and you say they like to take the long view. Could you explain that to everybody just a little bit?

The Long Plan: Tech Transfer

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Well, yes, I mean uh the Chinese take a long view on everything, and it's it's very, very useful. Um, even though they're and and you combine that with the efficiencies up here, and uh and China is uh it's quite amazing. But anyway, the Chinese leadership uh wants to know the ins and outs of their adversaries and and the people that they generally work with. Um they they seek to uh they want to be deal with dealing with a government that's stable and that they can understand. And um, I mean, if we want to get into the Trump scenario, I mean, this has thrown them way off balance, I think, because they can't, they have a hard time understanding who this gentleman is and what he's about.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

So basically, if we take a step back for a moment, uh, I returned to China, you know, I've gone in and out of China for the last 40 plus years, 45 years, I guess now. And I returned to China in 2015-16, and what I noticed was, as you were talking about here uh up in Shanghai, I was in the South, an acceleration uh on all fronts with the Chinese. At that point, it was not yet clear how fast this was going to go. And I would have to admit that I represented a couple of companies that were still outsourcing their technology to China because they felt they wanted to get into the world's what they felt would be the future world's largest market, as well as to gain the benefits of having this kind of hardworking uh workforce. However, that all came to a halt for me and so many others when COVID hit. I left just before COVID, thankfully, went back to Australia, and then the curtain came down on China. And I would like you to speak just for a moment to for that time. And to me, it seems to me there are two pivotal points here: the rise of Xi Jinping and also the kind of like militarization, as well as China taking its, you know, what they fully they believe rightful role in the world. And then secondly, COVID. How was that intersection between the two of those uh handled? And then when China emerged from COVID, where were they? Because there are no more foreigners around to tell us that story.

How Beijing Studies Adversaries

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Well, you know, I was here during COVID, and actually uh I was uh I had my vaccines done by the Chinese, which at that time to me was fairly scary because uh they had developed their vaccines off our vaccines. Um at that time, yes, so many foreigners left because of COVID. That exodus had already started well before before COVID. COVID just was an adder that pushed more foreigners out of Shanghai. And so, you know, what we ended with up with here um were just um a smattering, kind of a smattering of foreigners compared to the way it used to be. You know, when I when you know after my first four or five years in China, China was banging. It was really exciting to be up here. Um it was wide open, people were having a lot of fun. Um Americans, Europeans were trading in and out. It was great. And then and then things changed. I mean, dramatically. Um when uh Xiping came into a power. Um a lot of the fun venues were closed down. Um more and more foreigners started to leave. Um, and now if you look at it today, um there are very few uh hospitalities outlets that cater to foreigners. And also not too many people speak English up here anymore. That's quite extraordinary. Um, I'm sitting here in the Peninsula Hotel where I come from comfort uh coffee and luncheon sometime, and everybody here, of course, is conversant in English. But you step outside and go into a you know a shop uh or stop to ask directions on the street, and you know, people aren't speaking a lot of English. Now, I'm living now um with my family out in um in a uh town of 250,000 Chinese called Manchou, which is directly south of Shanghai. And I can tell you that I haven't seen a foreign face there in three years. That's extraordinary. I'm I'm as far as I can as far as I can tell, I'm the only Caucasian there. I have a I have a five-year-old daughter who looks a lot like me. And so when we're walking around the streets, I mean, uh it was like being back in China, you know, 40 years ago, people stare at you and wonder who you are and why you're there. You know, I get a lot of that, but I also have a great affection for the Chinese, in that uh I found everybody uh in Nanchia to be very friendly towards us, um, which kind of surprised me. You get, I'm gonna I'm taking it aside here, but you know, China's really divided in terms of its population, it's divided into those people who went through the cultural revolution, the 60s and uh seven years old, 50s, 60s, and 70 years old, and those the other uh group of people that are in their 20s and 30s and early 40s that are a go-go group of people. They're all driving around in very, very fancy uh electronic vehicles. Um, and so that's what I see, and that's what I see in Nanchiao. Anyway, I'm that was a little uh diversion, but go ahead, Bob.

COVID And The Great Exodus

SPEAKER_02 21:41

Yeah, so um that was really interesting. Thanks a lot for that. I know you've mentioned it in the past, uh, and I think we have come full circle for China in terms of the opening of China and now, in effect, in some ways, the closing of China, meaning China for the Chinese. And this is not at all what was expected. And I want to move forward now to the uh because we're gonna be covering these areas a lot uh in the future in our letters from China, where you will be showing us some of these places where foreigners no longer go. But right now, what's on our plate here is what happened with Trump and Xi Jinping. And I think all of this background information is extremely valuable and extremely important because Trump no longer, and you and I have discussed this, has the on-the-ground intelligence being fed back to him. He only has a few diplomats there who go in and out. There are no longer the US CEOs who used to fly in there, as you know, on a regular basis. They don't go to China anymore, they are doing other things. And so, what happens to me, in my view, is that Trump, when he arrived in Beijing, was no better off than, let's say, Ronald Reagan uh arriving or even uh Richard Nixon arriving before that. In other words, a very unknown situation. But this time the tables were turned as China has now taken the upper hand in so many ways.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

Well, you know, let's look at uh Trump's visit to China. I think it started off if I'm correct in Malaysia and moved on to um Japan, or maybe Japan was the last stop. I know I'm not quite sure. He was here for the ASEAN and the APEC uh meetings. And uh he finished up in South Korea with Xi Jinping. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, he ended up in South Korea, and um so uh it was a real whirlwind tour. And um in each of the places that he went to, he was you know faded with gold crowns and and uh gold swords and all of the things that he loves. Um and you know, I kind of just to regress a little bit, you know, I kind of think that uh he chose a really although this was scheduled, it was a perfect time for him to leave the states because he's under so much pressure in so many different directions. And uh personally, I don't really think he was up for any of the things that he did here. I he cut a few deals on on rare earths, and um, but we don't know whether they're gonna hold. You know, he did that, he uh spoke with Xi Ping at length uh on rare earths, and Zi Ping made some promises that go a year out. But um I felt that his meetings were uh basically inconsequential, if that's the if that's the right word. Um I don't really see where he accomplished much of anything. Um and we can go into the we can go into uh uh the rare earths and the agricultural issues and the fentanyl issues, if you'd like, because that's what that those are the key ones that were that they were talking about uh to you.

Life Now: Fewer Foreigners, New China

SPEAKER_02 25:19

Yeah, so uh at this point I would like to introduce something for our next uh episodes of letters. Uh I'm gonna show you a book here. This is uh Breaking the Engagement by David Scheinbach. This is uh written by uh a very close friend of our next guest, who's Mr. Chris Fussner, who's going to be having a letter from Singapore or letter from Asia. And Steve, we're gonna be discussing exactly how the rest of Asia looked at Trump's visit as also the declining American presence in this part of the world. I believe it's not only a situation for the United States of not having, using the Trumpian way of calling it, the cards anymore, but also Trump's type of singular diplomacy, meaning that he likes to do deals. He has moved decidedly away from working with allies. And in my view, and I'd like to know your view before we wrap up here on our first letter, in my view, is not working together with his allies. What Trump has actually done here has taken the American position, which was already becoming weakened. Let's go back all the way to George W. Bush, then to Obama, who was not very effective, but he did at least have this so-called TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which of course Trump dumped in its first term. However, Trump, and you remember this, Steve, he had Mike Pompeo. And Mike Pompeo, as Secretary of State, did the surround of China, which was a very, very powerful strategy. And it was kind of followed by Joe Biden, who was an alliance guy. This time, we are not seeing any of that at all. We are seeing the singular diplomacy, and in my view, and I'd like to know yours, this plays right into the strength of China and not the United States. How do you feel about that?

SPEAKER_01 27:23

Well, you know, we used to have a diplomatic corps. Where the hell are they? You know, we used to have great diplomats stationed all over the world, and I think a lot of them have been uh released or replaced. Um, and our State Department is, you know, uh certainly not what it used to be. Um, and that's to me very disturbing because I I've spent most of my life over here and I've interfaced with almost all the concept generals. Um and um, you know, it's changed, you know, we've been weakened in that area, greatly weakened, I think. But do we want to talk about uh what Trump lost or gained during his trip? Or shall we save that for another?

SPEAKER_02 28:11

Well, I think you can just sum it up for us. What do you think he? I think that's a perfect point here for you to tell us what had he lose and what did he gain?

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Well, let's Okay, so we talk about the three areas of interest to the US and China, um, being rare earths, um our agricultural shipments, and and fentanyl. And if you look at rare earths, uh the Chinese really gave up nothing. I mean, the the two uh two rare earths that are most valuable to the outside world are gallium and gallium and germanium. And they certainly aren't opening up the floodgates on either one of those rare earths. And they also have bans on 12 out of the 17 rare earths um uh overall. So Z has promised, you know, that he would uh keep the trade going in rare earths. Uh that's to be seen. That you know, I'm not so sure about that. He's given, I think he's taken a hiatus on the bands for a year. Um we'll just see how that goes. But I don't think the Chinese are about to give up uh their dominance in uh in rare earths, and not only that, but it's gonna take us five to seven years, okay, to put uh uh processing facilities online for for rare earths. Now, that to me is pretty scary. That's a long time. Uh and and China will certainly try and leapfrog us in things like AI and based on uh their their controlling the rare earths.

Trump’s Asia Tour And Beijing

SPEAKER_02 29:46

Um now, Steve, you have a very interesting position on fentanyl and the historical uh basis, which I'm not sure it's 100% true, but you feel pretty strongly about it and how the Chinese. Chinese look at fentanyl and that long-ago crisis, which is the the opium, the opium wars and the opium.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

I mean, if you if you go back to the uh late late 18th century, early 19th century, um the British in particular, um, Jardie Matheson being one, were shipping vast quantities of opium into China over those years. Um, and the Americans were involved in it too. Very interesting. Some of uh America's uh premier families um were involved in the opium trade. And uh just as an aside, my my cousin uh is a marketing manager for the Peabody Museum in Essex, Mass. And uh that museum was founded on the China trade. Really very, very interesting. If anybody is ever in Essex, Massachusetts, like and has any interest in you know China trade, uh it's a wonderful place to visit. Anyway, so so the Chinese, uh the Americans and the British and the Americans ship in uh, I think they were at the at the end of it, it was like a thousand plus chests of opium. Now, of course, the Chinese were complicit in this because it had to be distributed throughout China. Um so we addicted, I say we, um, the British and the Americans addicted 40 million uh uh Chinese to opium. 10% of the population, until um the Chinese just said no more and they had an opium more and so on and so forth. But my thinking is that you know the people in Beijing must be looking at this historically and saying, yeah, okay, well, you know, we're shipping fentanyl now into the US. And they've killed 250,000 people in the US since 1921. Excuse me, 2021. Uh that's a huge number. And over they say a couple million addicted to it, right? Um originally the the Chinese were shipping actually sentinel tablets, probably in through Mexico, and then they went to shipping in uh the precursor chemicals, uh which uh they say uh that they're they're gonna cease, but that remains to be seen.

SPEAKER_02 32:24

So there's just this interesting historical uh so so Steve, on that one, I think the key point here, thank you for the historical side of that. I think the key point here that you have mentioned to me many times, you know what uh controls are like in China, and I think you would agree that if China wanted to cut off Fentanyl 100%, they could. Is that correct or not?

SPEAKER_01 32:49

Yeah, they could. Absolutely. I mean, the the the government here mandates something and it gets done. You know, build me a railroad, five years railroads done. You know, uh let's get into electronic vehicles, you know, five years down the line, ten years down the line, perfect vehicles. So yeah, sure, they could mandate that. And and you you know, the the rules here for for breaking rules are stringent, as in air execution or life imprisonment. So sure they could stop the fence of trade if they wanted to, and I hope they will. You know, I think I would say that go ahead. I think we've had enough of it. So um I think so too.

Deals That Don’t Stick

SPEAKER_02 33:31

I would I would say that they are their rule uh enforcement is draconian, right? As you said, it's uh definitely not something you want to mess with. The bottom line here on this is that while that may or may not be true in terms of the connection from the past and uh some kind of payback, the bottom line here, Steve, is that they could cut it off and they have not cut it off. And I know that you talk about, well, stopping it through Mexico, but at the end of the day, this needs to be cut off right at the source, which is China. So I think walking away from this now, just wrapping this up, which is this I don't think that Donald Trump was able to accomplish what he really wanted to accomplish. And for that, I'm very sad. And I think part of that reason is, as you said before to me, his preparation for this meeting with Xi Jinping was certainly just not uh in-depth enough. He doesn't have the intelligence, and he believes that he can be uh, you know, a great deal maker. And I think you'd have to agree that when he has people like in Malaysia or in some other places in Japan, which are somewhat, and you've said this many times to me, are somewhat dependent still on the United States, he can make deals. But when he comes to China, that no longer is the case. Is that true or not, Steve?

Rare Earths: Promises And Power

SPEAKER_01 34:59

Yeah, that's very true. I mean, you know, to my way of thinking, that the Chinese have the upper hand in so many different areas, certainly in rare earths, uh, certainly now in uh ships of grain. That's another subject. Uh, just briefly, you know, uh, I feel very, very sorry for the American farmers. You know, we were shipping 30 million metric tons over the last uh five years per year. And then uh because of Trump's tariffs and other trade issues, you know, that uh number went down to I think in 2025 this year to something less than 10 million metric tons. And of course, you know, there's a lot of grain lying on the ground uh you know all over the US because our farmers are not shipping to you know to China. And again, Xiping has promised, or the government has promised, to uh increase now that those ships to 25 uh million metric metric tons of grain. Um we'll see if that happens. But at the same time, Brazil is has shipped something like 110 million metric tons. They had a crop in Brazil, and so you know, there's enough grain to go around here, but that's another area where uh you know we're kind of we've kind of been cut off. And uh and again, I feel very, very badly for the American farmers. And you know, to me, Trump kicked that off, you know, with his tariffs, you know, and and you know, this infighting. I think things would have pretty much remained the same in terms of shipments of grains, um, you know, soybeans, corn, wheat, sorghum, uh probably would have remained or certainly wouldn't have been reduced. Those shipments wouldn't have been reduced by Beijing as much as they have been. So that's a very that's a sticking point for me because I love the American farmers, as you do.

SPEAKER_02 37:06

Yeah, so Steve, I think we're gonna have to wrap it up there for our very first letter from China. We will be getting into it in the future, as I said, many other areas. One of which, of course, will be how can America turn that around? How can America actually save the situation for themselves and the rest of the Western and democratic world so that China does not actually dominate? As I said, a little preview, we will be having another letter from Asia later this week, and we will be talking about how other countries in Asia viewed the Trump time here, as well as some of the other key issues. I would like to take this moment here to thank Mr. Kroll for spending the time with us and giving us his insight. And also, if I could, I hope that my producer will allow me to do this. I'm going to move this around and show you where I am right now, which is in Singapore.

SPEAKER_00 38:08

Thank you for joining us on the Greenfield Report with Henry A. Greenfield. We hope today's insights into the ever shifting geopolitical landscape have sparked your curiosity and broadened your perspective. Stay connected with us for more in depth discussions and expert solutions. Until next time, keep exploring the world beyond the headlines.