📆 Sunday 21 June 2026, 2pm Britain, 9am US Eastern, 9pm China
A discussion of the Trump-Xi summit, the tariff war, US military aggression across the Global South, and the prospects for the world to come.
When Donald Trump arrived in Beijing in May for talks with President Xi Jinping – the first visit by a US president in nine years – the observant could detect a major shift in the international order. Successive US administrations’ increasingly desperate efforts to maintain dominance – through tariffs, sanctions, military aggression and technology warfare – have been failing as China’s economic might and diplomatic influence have grown. The trip Trump had hoped to make in triumph had to be made amid the disaster of his failing war on Iran, on top of the earlier failure of his tariff war against China.
Rather than projecting power, Trump was left with no alternative but to treat China as a peer. China now accounts for roughly 30 percent of global manufacturing output; the Belt and Road Initiative spans continents; and a growing majority of the world’s people are orientating away from US hegemonism and towards a pluripolar future. Xi’s quietly confident offer of “a new paradigm of major-country relations” and a “constructive relationship of strategic stability” went largely unchallenged.
Trump will undoubtedly flail against this new reality, and that flailing will bring further misery to the world. But there are signs that a critical corner is being turned in the journey towards a multipolar world order based on sovereignty, development and peace.
Join our panel of analysts, activists and scholars for a wide-ranging discussion of the Trump-Xi summit and its aftermath, the tariff war, US military aggression across the Global South, and the prospects for the world to come.
This webinar is organised by Friends of Socialist China and the International Manifesto Group.
Confirmed speakers
- Cheng Enfu (President of the World Association for Political Economy)
- Ben Norton (Founder and editor-in-chief, Geopolitical Economy Report)
- Carlos Martinez (Co-editor, Friends of Socialist China)
- Jacquie Luqman (Black Alliance for Peace)
- Jenny Clegg (Author and peace campaigner)
- Ken Hammond (Professor of History, New Mexico State University; Pivot to Peace)
- Mick Dunford (Emeritus Professor, University of Sussex)
- Mike Klonsky (Educator, author and activist)
- Moderator: Radhika Desai (Convenor, International Manifesto Group)
