Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Palm Beach, Fla.to meet with President Donald Trump

BY ISHAAN THAROOR   Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Palm Beach, Fla., on Thursdayfor an unorthodox meeting at President Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. The presidents and their wives are scheduled to spend about 24 hours together, including a Thursday night dinner and a working lunch the following day. The first meaningful discussions between arguably the two most powerful people on the planet are, of course, hugely significant. Trump spent a large chunk of his election campaign attacking China's supposedly unfair trade and fiscal practices, which he promised would be challenged by a more protectionist and nationalist Trump presidency. Xi, meanwhile, is meeting the erratic U.S. president at a time when his own political future at home is not as secure as some might think. Trump has already signaled this may be a tough encounter. But, as my colleague Simon Denyer wrote last week, it's quite likely Xi has come bearing gifts — “a package of pledges designed to give the U.S. president some 'tweetable' promises to present as victories.” Whether this translates into long-term wins for either leader is less clear. Either way, here are the main storylines to watch: The question of trade “We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country,” declared Trump on the campaign trail last year. He was talking about the United States' considerable trade deficit with China and Beijing's history of currency manipulation. Part of Trump's pledge to revive blue-collar American jobs explicitly involved punishing China on the world stage. This was a major departure from previous U.S. administrations, both Republican and Democratic, which embraced the dogma of open markets and sought to make China a reliable partner within — not an opponent to — an American-led international order. Earlier this year, as the world readied for Trump's inauguration, Xi cast himself as a custodian of that order, defending globalization, open borders and free trade — all things Trump campaigned against — at the World Economic Forum. Xi's rhetoric received mixed reviews, but it underscored the strange new paradigm shaping global relations. Ahead of Xi's visit this week, China's state media attempted to make the case for normal bilateral ties. “U.S. job losses are not China's fault,” read a Xinhua commentary on Wednesday. The next day, another piece argued that China's trade surplus “does not necessarily mean China benefits while the United States loses.” Xinhua went on: “About 40 percent of the trade surplus is actually generated by U.S. companies in China.” Ironically, as economic experts note, Trump's protectionist agenda is more in line with China's own practices, including its boosting of mammoth Chinese state-run companies. “Mr. Trump seems to want to move the U.S. toward China’s approach, rather than move China toward the U.S. approach of open trade and globalization,” said Eswar Prasad, a professor of trade at Cornell University, to my colleague Ana Swanson. “He seems to want the U.S. to be more like China than China to be more like the U.S. And I’m not sure that’s the best path for the U.S. to go down.” A magazine featuring President Trump on display with Chinese military magazines at a newsstand in Beijing on April 4. (Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press) The question of security There will be a Kim Jong Un-shaped elephant in the room in Mar-a-Lago. Amid a flurry of North Korean missile tests, the Trump administration is keen on getting China — Pyongyang's only real friend — to bring the pariah state to heel. Trump and other senior administration officials have signaled their impatience with North Korea and threatened unilateral action in the past week. “The clock is very, very quickly running out,” a senior White House official told reporters. "All options are on the table for us." This may all be bluster intended to pressure Beijing, which has cast itself as the honest broker between the North Koreans and the United States — much to American chagrin. Washington's longstanding frustration with what it perceives as China's unwillingness (or inability) to rein in North Korea will also run up against other geopolitical disagreements, including differences over China's expansionist role in the South China Sea and the status of Taiwan. On all these fronts, it's likely the Xi-Trump meeting will yield polite sound bites — and few real changes to the tense status quo. The question of strategy In the short term, Trump may emerge from Mar-a-Lago having burnished his credentials as a budding statesman — a pleasant photo-op here, a nice headline there. Xi, who will return home as the Communist Party is preparing for a cabinet reshuffle, has to walk a difficult line and “lose face” in the eyes of the global media and the Chinese public. But in the long term, Western observers see an alarming drift in the course of U.S.-China relations. “The problem lies in Mr. Trump’s transactional view of the world. He prefers deals to something as necessarily ill-defined as global leadership,” wrote Financial Times columnist Philip Stephens. “Hence the decision to repudiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement that would have checked Beijing’s advancing economic influence in the western Pacific and handed Washington important strategic leverage.” “As recently as four years ago, Xi and other Chinese leaders fretted, publicly and explicitly, that their people were being seduced by the moral glamour of American democracy — by the openhearted confidence of the 'shining city on a hill' and by the ability of a nation founded on slavery to elect its first African-American President,” wrote the New Yorker's Evan Osnos. “Xi worried that the American example of competence, generosity, and contempt for authoritarianism would, someday, drive his own people to challenge the rule of the Communist Party. Xi has less reason to worry about that today.”

• On Wednesday, President Trump, long an opponent of intervention in Syria, suggested that the chemical attack in northern Syria has changed his mind on using military force. Barely more than a day later, on Thursday evening, the U.S. fired a large barrage of Tomahawk cruise missiles at the Syrian air base from which the chemical attack was apparently launched. It's the first time in the six-year long war the U.S. has directly targeted the Assad regime. From my colleagues' report: “The assault adds new complexity to Syria’s prolonged conflict, which includes fighters battling the Syrian government and others focused on combatting the Islamic State, which despite over two years of American and allied attacks remains a potent force. "Within the administration, some officials urged immediate action against Assad, warning against what one described as 'paralysis through analysis.' But others were concerned about second- and third-order effects, including the response of Russia, which also has installed sophisticated air-defense systems in Syria, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.” The main question now is how Russia and Syria may react. The Pentagon informed the Russian military of the strike in advance, and the missiles did not target Russian personnel stationed at the air base. But Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters that Russia had been either "complicit" in or "incompetent" in stopping Syrian use of chemical weapons. If either Syrian or Russian forces move to retaliate, it may turn Trump's move from a one-off strike into the start of a much larger campaign. • Meanwhile, Turkish authorities conducting autopsies on some of the victims of the chemical weapons strike in the northern Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun said the chemical most likely used was the deadly nerve agent sarin. “Autopsies conducted on three victims by Turkish doctors confirmed that chemical weapons were used in a daybreak strike on Tuesday widely attributed to the Syrian government, providing the most concrete evidence to date of why so many people died,” reported my colleague Louisa Loveluck. A Guardian journalist made it to the town inside Syria’s restive Idlib province and found little evidence to bolster the Assad regime’s claims that the disaster was the consequence of an explosion at rebel-run chemical weapons plant. From the story: “’It was like Judgment Day,’ said Hamid Khutainy, a civil defence volunteer in Khan Sheikhun. Witnesses said the air raids began shortly after 6:30 a.m. on Tuesday, with four bombings around the town. Initially they thought it was just another airstrike, until the first responders who arrived at the scene began falling to the ground.” • You’ve heard a lot about House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and his complicated, controversial role in the White House’s Russia scandal. On Thursday, he finally recused himself from the ongoing probe. The House Ethics Committee said it would investigate allegations that Nunes "may have made unauthorized disclosures of classified information." Nunes, who said the charges were false and politically motivated, has come under fire for meeting with a secret source at White House grounds and viewing documents he said suggested that President Trump and his transition team members’ identities may have been improperly revealed in surveillance reports.

The front of the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv. (Amir Cohen/Reuters) No, not that one Before his inauguration, President Trump suggested that one of the first things he would do after taking office would be to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. As of yet, the move hasn't happened. It's not totally clear why, but it seems likely that Trump may have followed the advice of former U.S. diplomats and Arab leaders who warned that the move would infuriate Palestinians and could lead to violence. Many on the Israeli right — and the American right, too — are annoyed by the quiet change. But just a few months later, it looks like an embassy may be moving to Jerusalem after all. It just may not be American. The Russian Foreign Ministry released a statement on Thursday that said Moscow viewed "West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel." The statement appeared to mark a change in policy: Russia had previously said Jerusalem should be under international control. It was a surprising move, and no one seems to know what prompted it. Eugene Kontorovich, a law professor and expert of the Arab-Israeli conflict, wrote on Twitter that Moscow may be responding to America's slow moves on the issue. The Russian decision "stole [Trump's] thunder," Kontorovich wrote. The Israeli government itself appeared totally unprepared for the announcement. Officials could offer little comment to reporters, suggesting they weren't quite sure what to make of the situation. “We are studying the matter,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon to the Times of Israel. Whether the announcement is symbolic or not remains to be seen. The Jerusalem Post reports that the recognition of West Jerusalem as Israel's capital would "go into effect immediately" — but also that there is currently no intention of actually moving the Russian embassy. One Israeli official told the Jerusalem Post they suspect the move was announced to "deflect criticism" of Moscow's ties to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Either way, Russia and Israel have been pursuing a closer relationship recently. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Moscow last month to meet with Vladimir Putin, and neither country wants to see rebel or jihadist groups win the war in Syria. And with the U.S. suddenly making noises about getting tough on the Assad regime, Putin may soon need other allies in the Middle East. — Adam Taylor Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) walks towards the Senate chamber on April 6. (Alex Wong/Getty Images) The big question On Thursday, Senate Republicans voted to end the use of the filibuster on Supreme Court nominations, a move nicknamed "the nuclear option." Previously, a group of 41 senators could block a nomination from moving forward, which is what happened this week when Senate Democrats decided to filibuster conservative Judge Neil Gorsuch's nomination to the court. The move means Gorsuch will soon be confirmed, but pundits, politicians and even Republicans who voted for the rule change claim the end of the judicial filibuster is a dramatic and negative change for the Senate. So we we asked James Hohmann, a Post national political correspondent and the author of our sister newsletter, the Daily 202:  Why is the "nuclear option" potentially dangerous for American democracy? "The Senate is careening down a slippery slope. "For now, senators still agree that 60 votes should be required to break filibusters on actual bills, covering things like health care and tax reform. But both parties are becoming more and more beholden to their bases of support. Now that McConnell has loosened the rules for judicial nominees, he is certain to face intensifying pressure from conservative activists — and the White House — to do it again for legislation. "McConnell claims he can and will resist that pressure, but historians, political scientists and several senators on both sides think today’s move makes the change inevitable. And everyone agrees that would allow unworthy legislation to become law. "The Senate was designed to make it hard for narrow majorities to force their will on everyone else. The unruly, directly elected House of Representative might pass partisan bills, but the upper chamber — whose members were chosen by state legislatures until 1914 — was where legislation got a second reading by a more mature body and smaller states were given enough clout to protect their interests. "This is a feature, not a bug, of our system. Without the unique bicameral configuration, the Constitution might not have survived for 230 years. "Rule changes have often seemed like good ideas. In 1975, Democratic Senator Walter Mondale negotiated a deal to reduce the filibuster threshold from 66 votes to 60 votes, in part because he wanted to make it easier to pass civil rights legislation. "But more changes may turn out worse for Republicans in the long run. After all, the right does not want to pass sweeping laws that expand the government. Yet if Democrats regain the majority and the legislative filibuster is gone, they'll be able to raise taxes, jack up the minimum wage, create universal health coverage and enact other liberal policy priorities — with the GOP powerless to stop them."

The Syrian opposition is welcoming President Trump's apparent change of heart on intervening against the Assad regime, but taking the U.S. deeper into the war isn't as straightforward as simply getting some plans from the Pentagon. Even if he decides not to, there may still be an air of "Wag the Dog" about his new interest in using military force. And as the Trump-Xi summit gets underway, China's neighbors are watching the proceedings closely for hints of the U.S.'s plans.   Syrian opposition leader: Trump must match words with deeds Only by striking Assad and pressuring Russia can Trump fulfill his promise to respond to Syria's latest atrocities, says the former prime minister. By Josh Rogin | The Washington Post  •  Read more »   What could stop Trump from launching a war in Syria? After long insisting American action was unwise, the president is suddenly planning for military action — but he’ll face legal and practical hurdles. By David A. Graham | The Atlantic  •  Read more »   Trump’s pride has been hurt at home, so he’s looking to bolster it with a win in Syria There’s nothing like a nice little war to rally a country around you. By James Moore | The Independent  •  Read more »   Why Asia is so nervous over the Xi-Trump summit Nations in the region are watching very closely for signs the U.S. will scale back its military presence. By Catherine Wong, Kristin Huang, Liu Zhen and Minnie Chan | The South China Morning Post  •  Read more »

A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that more than 20 percent of American adults have a cancer-causing strain of a sexually transmitted disease called human papillomavirus. There is a vaccine, and experts recommend that parents vaccinate their children before their teenage years. But the number of Americans skeptical of the effectiveness of vaccines is growing, thanks to radio hosts like Alex Jones.   More than 1 in 5 U.S. adults are infected with cancer-causing HPV, CDC report says During a recent two-year period, almost 23 percent of U.S. adults had a type of HPV that causes cancer and can be stopped by vaccines. By Jia Naqvi | The Washington Post  •  Read more »   Oral cancer among reasons doctors urge HPV vaccine for kids Today, there is no doubt in the medical community that the increase in HPV-related cancers is caused by sexual practices. By Sarah Vander Schaff | The Chicago Tribune  •  Read more »   I watched Alex Jones give his viewers health advice. Here’s what I learned. There's a "fungus epidemic." And Infowars’ Jones has just the supplements to stop it. By Julia Belluz | Vox  •  Read more »

In Russia, the mourning for the victims of Monday's metro bombing in St. Petersburg is far from over. Russians held memorial rallies like this one in cities across the country — though some analysts suspect they were organized by the government in an implicit response to anti-corruption rallies that took place last week. Indeed, when one Moscow demonstrator held up a sign that read "Corruption Kills" —  terrorists in Russia were able to evade capture because police are corrupt, he argued — policemen quickly arrived and told him to lower it. (Olga MaltsevaAFP/Getty Images)

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