Xi Jinping seizes role as global defender of free trade

As Donald Trump threatens to impose tariffs on the entire world, Xi Jinping is once again wasting no time in positioning himself as the premier defender of the international trading system.

China's leader warned on Friday that the global economy was fracturing as protectionism spreads, leading to "severe challenges." The world, he declared, had "entered a new period of turbulence and change." "Dividing an interdependent world is going back in history," Xi said in a speech at the APEC CEO Summit in Peru read on stage by one of his ministers.

For Xi, it's a role he played when Trump first rose to power in 2017. Back then, China's head of state urged global business elites at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to reject trade wars and protectionism, saying it would cause "injury and loss to both sides."

In the eight years since, Trump imposed punitive tariffs on China that were largely kept in place by the Biden administration.