AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
It's been more than 10 weeks since the start of the war with Iran and more than a month since the ceasefire was announced, but there have been several attacks on ships in the Persian Gulf this past week. The Strait of Hormuz is still effectively closed, and global oil supplies are being choked. In the U.S., the average gas price is up. It's $4.52 a gallon, according to AAA. And the latest approval numbers for President Trump's handling of Iran and the economy is down. Joining me now to talk about this is NPR White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram. Good morning.
DEEPA SHIVARAM, BYLINE: Hey, Ayesha.
RASCOE: So, Deepa, this war has gone on for weeks longer than Trump anticipated, and negotiations are still going on to try to end the war. What is holding up the process?
SHIVARAM: Well, President Trump said he's waiting on a response from Iran. And in the meantime, he's still threatening to continue bombing Iran if they don't agree to the U.S. proposal to end the war. And, you know, since then, as you mentioned, throughout the course of this past week, the U.S. conducted strikes on Iran because they say three U.S. Navy ships came under Iranian attack unprovoked. Iran, on their part, says the U.S. started that violence. It was the first round of strikes that really took place since that ceasefire was negotiated, you know, weeks ago. But at this point, things still kind of seem at a standstill of not really getting a lot worse but also no end to the war anytime soon.
RASCOE: As the weeks go by, new polling is out showing that the war has put a dent in Trump's approval ratings among his own party.
SHIVARAM: Yeah. I mean, the thing is that this war has always been unpopular when you look at polling. A majority of Americans did not support U.S. actions in Iran from the beginning of this war. But among Republicans, there was pretty overwhelming support for Trump and what the U.S. military was doing in Iran. Now, 10 weeks into the war, though, the outlook has worsened a bit for Trump. Week after week, there's polling that comes out that shows that there's this cave in support among Republicans who support Trump. A recent poll from Marist this week shows that a majority of Republicans do still support Trump's approach in Iran, but 22% disapprove, and that's up from 15% in March. And that's on top of polling that has consistently shown really bad remarks for Trump on his handling of the economy and the issue of affordability, which is a top-of-mind issue for voters this year.
RASCOE: Iran will be on the agenda as the president travels to Beijing later this week to meet with China's leader, Xi Jinping. What would or what could Xi do to help Trump on the Iran front?
SHIVARAM: Yeah. So we were just talking about, you know, how this war is really making a dent in Trump's approval ratings at home. So he's going to have a few asks in this meeting. For example, Trump wants Xi to pressure Iran to help, you know, open the Strait of Hormuz. That's that really critical passageway where a lot of the world's oil travels through. That closure of the strait during this war has meant that, you know, oil prices have gone up, like you mentioned. That's really politically impacting Trump. And so because of China's relationship with Iran, there's some leverage China has here. But you have to keep in mind that relationships between the U.S. and China and Trump and Xi have been pretty frosty in just the last year, right? Trump really projects this friendship with Xi, that they respect each other. But last fall, there were massive tensions leading up to the Trump and Xi meeting that took place in South Korea because of Trump's escalating tariff war. And some of those tensions have calmed down, but whether there's actual progress or takeaways that come out of this meeting, you know, whether it's on Iran or other economic agreements, I think expectations are pretty low.
RASCOE: Artificial intelligence will also be a key subject between Trump and Xi. What's at stake in this AI race?
SHIVARAM: Yeah. I mean, Trump has been saying that when he meets with Xi this week, he's going to talk about how the U.S. is leading the AI race. I talked to some experts who say that Trump's not exactly wrong. When it comes to AI technology, the U.S. is ahead on really great models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google. By some estimates, the U.S. is about six to 12 months ahead of China on this. But where China is inching ahead is on AI adoption and how it's integrated into their society. And along with those issues as well as, you know, national security, cyberattacks, protecting, you know, the U.S. interests in these chips that are manufactured in Taiwan, things like that, all of that will probably be part of the discussion when it comes to AI and as these both - as both of these countries are trying to battle out to see who gets ahead in the AI race.
RASCOE: That's NPR White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram. Thanks so much.
SHIVARAM: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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