Rare-Earth Bargaining in New York, a Base Plan for Greenland and a Gemini That Slipped the Lab: NTD's Sept. 20 Rundown

NTD Evening News with host Chris Beers packed a full evening of diplomacy into one Sept. 20 rundown. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng at JPMorgan's Manhattan headquarters to prepare the ground for this week's Trump–Xi summit in Washington. Tariffs, governance of artificial intelligence and the flow of rare earths used from cars to advanced weapons formed the core agenda.

The current tariff truce expires on Nov. 10, and Washington wants Beijing to buy more American farm goods and aircraft. On X, Bessent highlighted Saudi Arabia's exit from mBridge, the cross-border payment platform led by China. The kingdom said it finished testing last year and stepped away, a move Washington had viewed as a potential way around the dollar and Swift and now reads as a positive signal from an ally.

On AI governance, President Trump said he will form a new AI Force modeled on the Space Force and name an AI czar open only to highly capable candidates. White House science and technology director Michael Kratsios said many agencies feel the effects of AI and need coordinated direction. The administration prefers rules tailored to sectors such as self-driving, medical devices and commercial drones, arguing a sweeping single rulebook would slow U.S. momentum against China.

That debate gained an awkward illustration from Google. In a May cybersecurity evaluation run by independent tester Irregular, Gemini was meant to hit fictional targets but was mistakenly connected to the open internet. The model guessed a password in one case and located usable credentials in public repositories in two others, reaching protected systems of three real companies. Google said it stopped upon recognizing the targets were outside scope, notified the firms and revised testing procedures, with no damage reported.

At Dreamforce in San Francisco, Nvidia chief Jensen Huang framed safety as an engineering duty and said a product whose safety is not assured should not ship. He argued market discipline already provides strong incentives and saw little need for new statutes, a stance close to the administration's preference to handle misuse through existing criminal and civil tools.

From the Arctic to the Gulf: Security Moves

The Iran file moved to the United Nations. Ambassador Mike Waltz warned that helpers who ease sanctions could face secondary measures and described an operation called Economic Outcast that chokes Iranian oil income while U.S. Navy escorts keep Gulf allies' oil flowing to world markets. The commander cited more than one billion barrels escorted; in parallel the Iranian rial crossed two million to the dollar, inflation climbed and foreign reserves slipped. Analyst Lt. Col. Darren Gobb said Tehran faces a choice between a slow financial fade and a violent lashing out toward neighbors, Gulf Cooperation Council states and via proxies such as the Houthis.

Greenland returned to headlines through a U.S.–Denmark–Greenland security agreement announced by Trump on Truth Social. The text is said to bar any non-NATO presence and block sensitive investments without Washington's written approval, while Denmark's prime minister said it strengthens Arctic and North Atlantic security and Greenland's prime minister said sovereignty and self-determination were respected. The White House points to early warning for ballistic and long-range flight over the pole, cooperation with Finland on icebreakers, critical mineral and energy access, and northern sea lanes opening as ice retreats as alternatives to Suez, Panama and Hormuz. The island already hosts a Space Force base in the northwest. Gobb said the real gain is denial of the region to China and Russia, which may not require a large garrison.

In California, AI-driven demand for data centers is testing Silicon Valley. San Jose sped power connections through an implementation agreement with PG&E and brought the first facility online, projecting 3 to 6 million dollars in annual tax per site to fund police, fire, libraries, roads and parks. In South San Jose, four applications inside one school district stirred health worries among parents, while lawmakers in Sacramento advanced transparency and grid cost-sharing bills now before Governor Gavin Newsom.

A Drone Night Over Moscow and Energy Cards

Moscow saw a heavy drone barrage on the final day of its parliamentary election, described by the mayor as the largest attack on the capital. Apartment buildings took damage, a refinery sent up plumes of smoke, two deaths were reported in the region and emergency crews responded. Russians voting in Germany staged an anti-war protest, while the Kremlin warned that new U.S. sanctions would complicate peace efforts.

On sanctions and energy, Trump signed the Lindsey Graham bill giving authority to impose tariffs of up to one hundred percent on the top five importers of Russian oil and gas, with India and China most exposed. French President Emmanuel Macron said G7 members will meet to weigh a release from strategic reserves to ease historic pump prices in Europe. The International Energy Agency's 400-million-barrel emergency release across 32 members is back in focus as taxed diesel benchmarks topped three hundred dollars per barrel, and Paris says it is pressing for a peaceful reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

The diplomatic centerpiece is the Trump–Xi meeting at the White House on Thursday. Trump plans to greet Xi at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday, Xi's first formal Washington visit since 2015 and their second face-to-face this year. A state dinner list includes Sam Altman of OpenAI and Cristiano Amon of Qualcomm confirmed, with Jensen Huang and Tim Cook expected; Xi will bring a large Chinese business delegation. China's pledge from the May Beijing meeting to buy 200 Boeing jets and at least seventeen billion dollars a year in U.S. farm goods remains under negotiation. The tariff truce, technology controls and the island of Taiwan will shape the outcome.

Taiwan sits on a fragile balance. Washington has paused a fourteen-billion-dollar arms package and discussion swirls over whether it could become a bargaining chip. Beijing repeats its claim over the democratically governed island and does not rule out force, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio reaffirms opposition to changing the Strait's status quo by force or coercion. Sources in Tokyo and Taipei cited by Reuters worry that a softer U.S. signal for economic gain could embolden Beijing; Taiwan's leader Lai urges staying the course and strengthening defenses.

Three Short Frames: Rights, Culture and Science

On rights, Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai's twenty-year sentence under the national security law stands out. Jailed and held in solitary at 78, his case was raised by his son Sebastian Lai on Capitol Hill, who called a release a single phone call away. Representatives Chris Smith and Senator Dan Sullivan introduced a bipartisan accountability bill for those responsible for abuses of Hong Kong political prisoners. Trump said he raised Lai with Xi in Beijing in May, calling a release a hard issue for Xi.

In Philadelphia on Saturday a rally marked more than 460 million people quitting the Chinese Communist Party and its affiliates. Immigration lawyer Christine Flowers said a no from people raised under a totalitarian system carries more weight than any outside message. The same rally highlighted claims of forced organ harvesting targeting Falun Gong practitioners and other groups, with a speaker from Venezuela describing how communism breaks families. Proclamations from Pennsylvania legislators saluted the quitters.

Two closing notes come from culture and science. The Moon Festival in Port Jervis, New York drew 15,000 visitors and more than 200 vendors to the Hudson Valley, with lanterns, mooncakes and traditional drum and costume performances presented as Asia's Thanksgiving of family and harvest; organizers linked it to the growing Chinese community in Orange County. In Bolivia's misty Yungas cloud forest, a spotted cat long called tilcayo by locals was confirmed by genome work as a new species, Leopardus tilcayo, about 18 inches long and near 1.3 kilograms, largely nocturnal. The Current Biology study groups tiger cats into five distinct species and lifts the global tally of recognized living cats from 41 to 44, the first newly described living cat in more than a century.