US President Donald Trump’s high-profile summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington produced limited substantive progress, leaving major differences between the two countries unresolved despite the leaders’ display of personal diplomacy.
Trump had hoped the elaborate meeting would showcase the strength of his relationship with Xi. However, analysts said the outcome highlighted Beijing’s limited incentive to make major concessions to Washington ahead of the US midterm elections.
“The US-China relationship has settled into a managed stalemate,” said Craig Singleton, senior director for China at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Singleton said the elaborate ceremony surrounding the summit was significant because there was relatively little substantive progress for the leaders to announce.
The two countries agreed on recommendations for more favourable tariff treatment covering about $30 billion of non-sensitive goods in each direction, while extending an existing trade truce for two months. The arrangements were intended to provide more time for broader economic negotiations.
The absence of a large delegation of Chinese corporate executives accompanying Xi also highlighted difficulties surrounding US concerns about Chinese investment, while raising questions about the prospects for a broader two-way investment arrangement.
“The Trump-Xi summit created a positive political atmosphere but did nothing to narrow differences, or reduce mutual suspicions,” said Drew Thompson, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
Joe Mazur, a geopolitics analyst at Beijing-based consultancy Trivium, described the summit as a “PR win” for China, arguing that Trump’s diplomatic engagements during the week demonstrated limits to US influence.
Trump had gone out of his way to welcome Xi, including greeting the Chinese president at the airport. At a lavish state banquet attended by senior officials and technology executives, Trump also said the two leaders had “never gotten along better.”
Shen Weizhong, a former Chinese foreign ministry official and vice president of the Global Governance Institution, said the welcome extended to Xi exceeded Chinese expectations.
He said China did not necessarily expect every presidential visit to produce specific agreements or tariff reductions, arguing that the leaders meeting and publicly demonstrating cordial relations could itself be significant.
Analysts said Xi also had little incentive to make major concessions, with China’s dominance of rare-earth production giving Beijing leverage over industries including technology, automobiles and defence. China’s global trade has also continued to grow despite US tariff pressure.
Trump nevertheless secured some concessions. China agreed to reduce tariffs on a range of US agricultural products, including corn, wheat, meat and dairy, while soybeans were excluded from the tariff-reduction list.
The agricultural measures could benefit American farmers, an important constituency for Trump ahead of the midterm elections. However, the exclusion of soybeans leaves one of the United States’ major agricultural exports outside the latest tariff reductions.
China also gave limited indication that it would help Trump end the war in Iran. Xi had urged the United States and Iran to return to negotiations, while Beijing has continued to oppose some US positions on the conflict.
Xi also raised contentious issues with Trump, including US support for Taiwan, the self-governed island claimed by Beijing. Trump did not address Taiwan in his public remarks during the summit, unlike at their May meeting when he described a proposed $14 billion US arms package for Taiwan as a “negotiating chip.”
Washington has portrayed its repeated meetings with Xi as important for maintaining stable relations between the world’s two largest economies.
However, Jeremy Chan, a senior analyst at Eurasia Group and former US diplomat in China, said the frequent meetings could give Beijing additional time to delay US actions it opposes, including arms sales to Taiwan.
“That’s a major strategic win for the Chinese and a major loss for Taiwan and a lot of US allies and partners in the region,” Chan said.
The summit ultimately produced agreements on trade and artificial intelligence dialogue, but left broader disputes over technology, rare earths, Taiwan and other strategic issues unresolved.
Ojo Triumph
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