“You don’t have the cards,” Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during their meeting at the White House in February, trying to make him understand that Ukraine could not win in negotiations with Russia what it had lost on the battlefield. “They’re playing with a pair of twos,” Bessent told the press before his first face-to-face negotiations with his Chinese counterpart Vice Premier He Lifeng—attempting to unsettle his opponent.

Apparently, U.S. President Donald Trump and his chief economic negotiator, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, like to play poker.

“You don’t have the cards,” Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during their meeting at the White House in February, trying to make him understand that Ukraine could not win in negotiations with Russia what it had lost on the battlefield. “They’re playing with a pair of twos,” Bessent told the press before his first face-to-face negotiations with his Chinese counterpart Vice Premier He Lifeng—attempting to unsettle his opponent.

At the end of October, Trump and Bessent will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea. But after having lost five successive hands at the tariff and supply chain table, Trump knows he doesn’t have the cards.

The great awakening came four months ago in May. Despite a reported agreement to resume rare-earth shipments to U.S. customers, China continued choking off exports of rare-earth magnets to the United States, and the latter responded by tightening export controls on semiconductors and aircraft parts. Within a week, U.S. factories producing everything from F-35 stealth fighters and Patriot missiles to Ford’s F-150 and Explorer vehicles were grinding to a halt. As frantic calls poured in from CEOs, the U.S. Defense Department, and others, Trump, Bessent, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick found themselves confounded.

In his g