While President Trump was in Beijing for a bilateral summit with Xi Jinping, Eric Eggers, Vice President of the Government Accountability Institute, offered a pointed assessment of what sets this moment apart from everything that came before: Washington is no longer pretending not to know what China is doing.
“China being aware that we know what they want to do, and we’re here to try to stop them from doing that while still being a good partner in global commerce — I think is a significant step towards cooperation and prosperity for all,” Eggers said.
Eggers frames Trump’s approach as a deliberate leverage operation.
The sticks are oil price pressure and the quiet economic strain bearing down on a Chinese middle class whose real condition Beijing actively suppresses in official data.
The carrots are high-value technology partnerships — led by Jensen Huang and Nvidia — that, unlike covert influence operations, carry at least some regulatory transparency.
“At least if they’re doing business, there’s going to be some safeguards,” Eggers said. “There’s some transparency, and you’ve got a lot of eyes on it from a regulatory standpoint.”
On elite capture, Eggers draws directly on GAI’s own reporting. The organization broke the story on Hunter Biden’s half-billion-dollar joint venture with the Chinese Communist Party — a deal that, at the time, the Biden White House dismissed as ordinary business.
Eggers places it alongside the Fang Fang/Swalwell relationship, Dianne Feinstein’s CCP-linked driver, and a California mayor’s admission of working hand in glove with the Chinese Communist Party as documented examples of a coordinated access strategy that has cut across both parties and multiple levels of government.
“China has clearly been engaged in espionage on a number of fronts,” he said.
The Trump team is working three specific pressure tracks simultaneously. China continues to provide material support for Iran’s oil exports and military capacity (although discussions at the Beijing summit may have brought this to an end).
Chinese precursor suppliers remain the upstream engine of the fentanyl pipeline running through Mexican cartels into American communities.
And China’s near-total grip on rare earth mineral supply chains — essential to American manufacturing and defense — remains largely intact, though Eggers notes Beijing has paused its threats to restrict export access, a sign the carrots on the table are doing some work.
Eggers’ bottom line is that China’s negotiating position is weaker than its public posture suggests. Its economic data is unreliable and likely worse than reported. Its population cannot voice dissent. And its dependence on U.S. markets and access to technology gives Trump genuine leverage — provided the administration sustains pressure across all fronts simultaneously. “If there’s one thing President Trump understands,” Eggers said, “it is leverage.”
Watch the clip above.
