THE world’s hopes are up on two fronts following last month’s meeting in Osaka, Japan, of the G20 – the world’s top 20 national economies – at which United States (US) President Donald Trump, Russia President Vladimir Putin, and China President Xi Jinping got to meet face-to-face in bilateral talks on the sidelines of the G20 Summit.
President Putin proceeded to Rome, Italy, after Osaka, to meet with Pope Francis and with Italy Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. There he spoke of his talks with Trump on disarmament and strategic stability.
“I think that reaching concrete measures in the field of disarmament should contribute to strengthen international stability. Russia has the political willingness to do it. Now it is up to the US,” he said in an interview with an Italian newspaper. “It seems that Washington has started to reflect about stepping up dialogue with Russia over a wide strategic agenda.”
It is not generally known, but, despite their treaty in 1987 banning short and intermediate-range missiles, the US and Russia still have over 12,000 long-range and submarine-borne missiles between the two of them which were not covered by the treaty. The Federation of American Scientists estimates that Russia has 6,500 nuclear warheads, while the US has 6,185. There are also some missiles in the hands of China, France, United Kingdom, Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea.
The whole world lived in fear all during the Cold War because of these thousands of nuclear missiles and heaved a great sigh of relief when the US and Russia dismantled much of their nuclear armaments. But a great deal remains in storage. US President Trump and Russia President Putin are now considering further cuts in these deadly arsenals. We hope their new initiative will lead to such reductions.
The G20 Summit in Japan also saw a meeting between Trump and China’s Xi Jinping, who agreed to relaunch their negotiations for an end to the year-long trade war that has affected the entire world. The US has slapped tariffs on billions of dollars worth of Chinese imports, which China countered with its own tariffs on US goods.
Trump and Xi agreed at their meeting in Osaka to relaunch the talks that had been stalled in May, and Trump’s economic adviser Larry Kudlow announced that these will now resume this week. To get the new talks going, Trump agreed to hold back planned additional tariffs and to loosen restrictions on Chinese technology company Huawei.
The US and China have both acted with great determination – and obstinacy – in their trade war, but both have suffered the consequences, along with many other nations, including ours, which trade with the two. We thus hope that the end to their dispute is in sight.
The US-Russia nuclear armories and the US-China economic rivalry are two problems affecting the entire world. The face-to-face meetings of their leaders in Osaka may have moved them to take the steps they are now taking. We fervently hope for the success of these new talks involving the world’s three biggest and most important countries today.