Washington, DC

1. Pentagon stakes scrutiny
2. Xi visit preparations
3. Taiwan on back burner
4. Canada tariffs pushback
5. Dem leadership fight
6. France’s pivot
7. South Africa’s platinum play

PDB: Most Americans approve of UN

Trump meets Mamdani, Macron in New York … G7 finance ministers meet in New York … German Chancellor Merz says regional elections a “disaster”

WH helped Pentagon explain equity legality

One month before the Pentagon announced its first equity stake in a company, its top lawyer asked the White House to explain why the deal wouldn’t break the law, Semafor’s Eleanor Mueller scoops. The White House budget office responded with a previously unreported legal opinion, reviewed by Semafor, that provides a crucial look at how the Trump administration has justified one of its most controversial deployments of taxpayer money in the private sector. While the Pentagon went on to strike more such deals — including its most recent agreement, with Venezuelan oil company North American Blue Energy Partners — former Pentagon officials told Semafor they were skeptical of budget office lawyer Mark Paoletta’s reasoning. For the moment, the Defense Department’s investments are operating in a legal morass that lawmakers in both parties see as unsustainable, particularly as the Trump administration offers conflicting explanations.

US, Chinese officials talk ahead of Xi visit

The stage is set for President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to meet this week, after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer had a “very successful engagement with the Chinese on trade and AI” yesterday. Officials picked up where they “left off in Beijing,” Bessent said, and discussed AI and how to “operationalize” the Board of Trade ahead of Xi’s arrival in Washington Wednesday. They specifically discussed standing up a formal dialogue for the US and China on AI, Bessent said, and made plans to meet again. He added that the US proposed a US-China “notification mechanism” for AI incidents that pose threats to national security. On trade, the countries are weighing which “relatively small subset” of goods could be considered by the Board of Trade rather than through a national security review, Greer said, pointing to consumer goods; “low-tech” items; energy-related products; agricultural goods; and medical devices.

— Eleanor Mueller

What about Taiwan?

Questions about the US’ relationship with Taiwan will likely take a back seat to trade, AI, and other issues as Trump welcomes Chinese leader Xi Jinping to Washington. Still, rising tensions over the self-governing island loom in the background, as the Iran war depletes the US’ weapons stockpile and Taiwan’s AI chip production raises the stakes for any potential conflict. “I don’t think that Taiwan will be as prominent an issue at the summit as it was last May,” the German Marshall Fund’s Bonnie Glaser told Semafor. She added, however, that Xi will likely “warn that US arms sales to Taiwan would undermine the leaders’ consensus on having a relationship of constructive strategic stability.” Reports suggest that Trump plans to delay an already stalled Taiwan arms package until after the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November; that’d leave Taipei and its Washington allies nervous.

— Morgan Chalfant

Senate unlikely to repeal Canada tariffs

Trump’s new Canada tariffs are infuriating Democrats and annoying some Republicans — but Congress is unlikely to vote on them before the election. Trump’s use of a nearly century-old law to impose the levies takes away individual senators’ ability to force such a vote on the Senate floor like they did with the previous set of Canada tariffs, which were imposed under a different statute, noted Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va. And that means Republican committee chairmen and leaders control any effort to curtail them — not rank-and-file Democrats. “The other tariff statutes don’t have this privileged motion that a single senator can force a vote on the floor,” Kaine said. He added that tariff opponents can write bills to block the tariffs, but under Republicans, “they get sent to a committee” and “the committee bottles it up.” Instead, Democrats are eyeing pre-election Iran war votes.

— Burgess Everett

The low-key House Dem leadership fight

House Democrats are fighting over the pecking order in their extended leadership hierarchy as they hope to win the majority. In recent days, allies of both Reps. Joe Neguse, D-Colo., and Ted Lieu, D-Calif., have laid claim to the fourth-ranking slot in the majority as they look to potentially convert their current titles (assistant Democratic leader and caucus vice chair, respectively), into the equivalent roles in the majority (assistant speaker and caucus chair). Top Democrats are publicly staying above the fray. “We have a great team,” said Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., “Everybody has a role to play, and everybody’s valued.” A person close to leadership noted that Minority Whip Katherine Clark was considered the fourth-ranking Democrat when she was the assistant speaker under Nancy Pelosi. Democrats’ internal rules lay out an election order, though the House’s website lists Lieu above Neguse.

— Nicholas Wu

Elite French college refocuses on security

European leaders are taking Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s flirtation with pulling out troops seriously and reckoning with the fading American security umbrella. That’s why one of the continent’s key training grounds is refocusing on security. “We had been the school of happy globalization,” the president of the elite French university Sciences Po told Semafor’s Ben Smith in an interview from Paris Sunday. “We need to readjust the mindset of future European elites to a world that is going to be more competitive, more brutal.” To that end, Sciences Po just opened a Centre for Global Security and Governance, and enrollment in its defense, security, and intelligence majors is booming.

South Africa woos US, China with platinum

South Africa is using its role as the world’s dominant supplier of platinum as leverage to simultaneously strengthen its relationships with Washington and Beijing, Semafor’s Alexis Akwagyiram, Tiisetso Motsoeneng, and Sam Mkokeli report. Pretoria’s relationship with Washington has deteriorated over the Trump administration’s disputed claims of government-sponsored discrimination against Afrikaners. But trade ministry documents show Pretoria has sought commercial deals with Washington to develop local processing of platinum, which the US uses for catalytic converters, defense equipment, and data center hardware, and to grow its own automotive industry. Deepening that relationship would give Pretoria a bulwark against punitive US trade pressure. It is seeking to again pursue those efforts this week, a spokesman said. Meanwhile, market data shows China has stockpiled platinum overwhelmingly bought from South Africa to develop green hydrogen for clean energy and to build state-run data centers.

Blindspot: Oil and the Kennedy Center

Stories that are being largely ignored by either left-leaning or right-leaning outlets.

What the Left isn’t reading: US Central Command said it helped move 1 billion barrels of oil through the Strait of Hormuz in recent months.

What the Right isn’t reading: The New York Times details how President Trump “broke the Kennedy Center.” 

White House

• President Trump said his proposed triumphal arch in Washington, DC, would house drones, snipers, and ammunition, in an effort to give it a military justification along the lines of his dual-use ballroom.
• Trump flip-flopped repeatedly in recent days over whether to strike the Houthis in Yemen at Saudi Arabia’s request. — NYT

Congress

• Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso told NBC that Congress needs “to do more” on affordability.

Outside the Beltway

• Paramount has discussed a $1.5 billion investment in California in return for the state allowing its merger with Warner Bros. Discovery to proceed, among other bargaining chips. — WSJ

Campaigns

• The group Home of the Brave is launching a $1.25 million billboard campaign in competitive districts in Ohio, Michigan, and Iowa hitting President Trump on rising prices.
• Those in former Vi