The Trump-Xi Summit

Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Overcast | Pocket Casts It’s a big week on the global stage.

More than 100 world leaders and their senior representatives will meet in New York City for the United Nations General Assembly.

And on Thursday, eyes will turn south, to Washington, where President Trump will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping for the second time in the past six months.

Warnings from Silicon Valley executives about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence hang over the proceedings.

Tech leaders have called for a slowdown in development and regulation, but Trump is wary of their caution.

The president believes that slowing down on AI will help China, though recent reporting suggests that he may be just as, if not more, worried that a slowdown will throw the American economy—already hurting from the war in Iran, which has sent gas prices soaring—into a recession.

What will come of the meetings in New York? Will Xi and Trump find common ground on AI? On this episode of Radio Atlantic , I spoke with my colleagues Vivian Salama, a longtime foreign-policy reporter, and Rogé Karma, an economics reporter, to make sense of it all.

The following is a transcript of the episode: Rogé Karma: If Donald Trump’s main way to negotiate is by threatening economic coercion, China now knows he doesn’t have much to use. [ Music ] Adam Harris: This is Radio Atlantic .

I’m Adam Harris, and it’s a big week in international politics.

World leaders are meeting in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, and Chinese President Xi Jinping is coming to Washington for the first time in over a decade, at a moment when China is central to the global conversation around AI.

President Trump continues to favor speed over caution to ensure the U.S. can remain ahead on artificial intelligence.

But not everyone, including the CEOs leading AI companies, are so sure.

The U.S. and China’s relationship has been cold to lukewarm since the president returned to office.

The nations reached a shaky trade truce last year following Trump’s tariff rollout, and other countries have turned to China for trade deals amid the turmoil inflicted by his administration’s policies.