As US President Donald Trump rolled out the red carpet for Chinese President Xi Jinping with an unusual personal welcome at the airport, followed by a state dinner and military flyover, experts are warning that the summit will temper expectations as it focuses on “re-establishing trust” rather than announcing a meaningful deal at the end.
The United States and China have been engaged in a trade war since President Trump imposed tariffs on imports of certain industrial goods, and Beijing retaliated by imposing tariffs on a wide range of American exports, including soybeans, pork and electric vehicles. Some of these policies continued under Trump’s successor, President Joe Biden, who introduced other measures such as curbs on chip exports.
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But relations have soured sharply since President Trump entered his second term and imposed new tariffs on China, including threatening 200% at one point last year, and Beijing has vowed to hit back with similar levels and curb exports of critical minerals used to make products ranging from laptops and cellphones to cars and renewable energy infrastructure.
Although the two countries have retreated from that cliff since the two leaders met in Busan in late October on the sidelines of the APEC summit in South Korea, U.S. tariffs remain high, averaging 36.5%, and China’s tariffs on U.S. goods average 31%.
“This is not a negotiating summit,” Reza Hasmas, academic advisor at the University of Alberta’s China Institute, told Al Jazeera. “This is a stabilizing summit.”
Apart from tariffs, other topics on the agenda include the security of artificial intelligence, cooperation on Iran, and Taiwan.
Mary E. Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said the “point of the summit” reached in Busan was to set up a continuation of the ceasefire agreement.
It was after this meeting that China resumed supplies of critical minerals. The United States wants these deliveries to be expedited, Labrie added, and “for that reason alone, the United States would want the ceasefire to continue.”
Towards that goal, a trade commission mechanism could be announced in which the two countries would each lower tariffs on $30 billion worth of goods, Lovely said.
For Lovely, the best-case scenario coming out of the summit would be for the two countries to actually start liberalizing trade in some non-sensitive goods, and the flow of critical minerals to actually accelerate, all of which would signal “a bit of normalization of relations.” On the other hand, the worst case scenario, she says, is when you can’t find common ground.
tricky area
For example, experts agree that safety rules around AI and a coordinated slowdown of the field could be a difficult topic.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has proposed U.S.-China dialogue and an AI hotline for reporting AI incidents that could threaten national security, but a lack of mutual trust will limit any real progress in this area, said Dexter Tiff Roberts, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub.
This distrust is fueled by U.S. restrictions on sales of advanced chips to China, as well as repeated rhetoric from the U.S. government, including from Mr. Trump, that the battle for supremacy in AI must be won by the United States.
At the same time, “China wants to advance global governance in its own way, and sees AI as a soft power tool that it can offer to other countries,” Tiff Roberts said.
Similarly, regarding Iran, China does not sell arms to Tehran, but it does sell dual-use parts to Tehran. Additionally, historically, China has purchased large amounts of oil from Iran, and the proceeds have contributed to the survival of Iran’s economy.
In the past months of the U.S.-Iran war, China has refrained from such purchases as it has drawn down its strategic stockpiles, helping to stabilize global oil prices, but experts say that could change in the near future.
Tiff Roberts said Beijing is “happy that the U.S. is distracted by the Iran war” and “has no intention of helping the U.S.”
Next is Taiwan.
Although Taiwan is democratically ruled, China considers it its own territory and wants the United States to move closer to its policies. Taiwan, which rejects unification, has been waiting for months for Washington, D.C., to approve a $14 billion arms sale.
“We don’t expect Trump to sell Taiwan down the river… but Trump is a bit of a wild card and Taiwan is watching nervously,” Tiff Roberts said.
Although no substantive agreement is expected at the three-day summit, experts agree it is important for the two leaders to meet.
“There’s so much at stake, given our huge trade relationships with other parts of the world,” Tiff Roberts said.
Tiff Roberts also said that President Trump “wants a big state visit to show he’s an international leader and wants to show he’s a leader with the bright lights of television” ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, while China needs improved trade relations, especially as its domestic economy slumps.
But ultimately, “It’s going to be a horse-and-pony show with some announcements that don’t mean much, but it’s going to be about re-establishing trust,” said Hasmas of the China Institute.
