The Communist Chinese got a dose of castor oil at a White House presser yesterday.

Asked whether he was willing to pull back on his 145% tariff in order to get China to the negotiating table, the normally loquacious Trump couldn’t have been more curt: “No,” he responded. Next question.

Later, when asked what specific steps China needs to take regarding fentanyl in order to see some tariff relief, Trump responded: “Well, they have to stop fentanyl from coming in. That’ll be a very big part. And I had that understanding with President XI before I left last time. We had a deal, and he would have honored the deal, but when Biden came in, of course, nothing ever happened.”

A reminder: China is murdering our people by the bushel via its willful shipment of fentanyl’s component parts to Mexico, which the drug cartels then assemble, often disguised as other drugs, before smuggling it across our southern border to kill unsuspecting Americans. How deadly is the fentanyl plague? Ask the families of the more than 107,000 Americans who died from drug overdoses in 2023. For perspective, here’s Victor Davis Hanson: “The result over the last decade is more dead Americans from fentanyl than the total number of all U.S. soldiers lost in the wars of the twentieth century.”

Here, one might ask: How is China’s continued complicity in this mass murder not an act of war? It’s a great question. As the ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tsu put it, “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” Or, to translate the third of 36 age-old Chinese stratagems, it’s best to commit murder “with a borrowed knife.”

All this, then, was the backdrop for this morning’s announcement that the U.S. has entered into a trade agreement with the United Kingdom — one based on reciprocity rather than imbalance. Trump teased the deal last night on Truth Social: “Big News Conference tomorrow morning at 10:00 A.M., The Oval Office, concerning a MAJOR TRADE DEAL WITH REPRESENTATIVES OF A BIG, AND HIGHLY RESPECTED, COUNTRY. THE FIRST OF MANY!!!”

This morning, he named the name: “The agreement with the United Kingdom is a full and comprehensive one that will cement the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom for many years to come. Because of our long time history and allegiance together, it is a great honor to have the United Kingdom as our FIRST announcement. Many other deals, which are in serious stages of negotiation, to follow!”

Also this morning, the anti-tariff Wall Street Journal reported that the deal would be something less than “full and comprehensive,” quoting anonymous “U.K. officials” that the agreement “won’t be a comprehensive trade agreement, focusing instead on reducing tariffs in specific sectors.”

Just before 11 am ET, Trump and his trade team announced the deal from the Oval Office:

Regardless of the specifics, it’s an announcement that will likely grease the skids for others. Without naming any countries, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent mentioned that the U.S. is in negotiations with “17 major trading partners,” with speculation that India, Japan, and South Korea are among them.

China, though, is not among them — at least not yet. Earlier this week, we pondered whether Trump was breaking China’s will. And sure enough. As the Associated Press reports: “Top U.S. officials are set to meet with a high-level Chinese delegation this weekend in Switzerland in the first major talks between the two nations since President Donald Trump sparked a trade war with stiff tariffs on imports.”

The talks will include Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, and, as the AP adds, “No country has been hit harder by Trump’s trade war than China, the world’s biggest exporter and second largest economy.”

Here, we should tap the brakes. Whenever and wherever the Red Chinese are concerned, agreements are to be taken with a tablespoon of salt. This regime, after all, and its communist ideology, aren’t to be trusted. Aside from killing our people with fentanyl, they lie, they cheat, and they steal, especially where it concerns our intellectual property. That’s what they do.

But right now, they’re on the outside looking in — which is right where Donald Trump wants them to be.

(Edited)