About a year into President Trump’s global trade war, China hasn’t just survived. It has emerged stronger than ever on the world stage. Keith Bradsher, the Beijing bureau chief for The New York Times, discusses the domination of China’s robot-powered superfactories and how the country essentially made itself tariff-proof. Guest: Keith Bradsher (https://www.nytimes.com/by/keith-bradsher) , the Beijing bureau chief for The New York Times. Background reading:  • China’s secret weapon in the trade war is an army of factory robots (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/23/business/china-tariffs-robots-automation.html) . • Beijing announced a record trade surplus (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/business/china-trade-surplus-exports.html) in January as its exports flooded world markets. Photo: Qilai Shen for The New York Times For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily (http://nytimes.com/thedaily?smid=pc-thedaily) . Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.  Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts (http://nytimes.com/podcasts) or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.