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THE summit meeting between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping produced no surprises. The pomp and ceremony during the visit were as expected. The summit was more about optics than outcomes, but at its core, it was about managing superpower competition and stabilising the world’s most consequential relationship.
The meeting took place after weeks of delay with an agenda that matched the range of disputes between the two global powers: trade, technology, rare earths and critical minerals, Taiwan and the Iran conflict. The race for AI dominance between the two powers remains intense.
This was the first trip to Beijing by an American president in nearly a decade. The last was Trump’s own visit in 2017. This time he arrived with diminished leverage. His inability to secure any of his stated objectives in the Iran war damaged his standing and eroded US credibility. Trump’s push to reach even a limited framework agreement with Tehran ahead of his China visit did nothing to change that reality. With his approval ratings at a historic low, Trump’s unpopularity at home also weakened his hand.
Most significantly, his tariff offensive against China all but backfired. When Trump raised trade levies on China last year, escalating at one point to 145 per cent, Beijing used its leverage on critical rare earth minerals, over which it has a near-monopoly, to push back by curbing its exports.
