The Trump-Xi Summit and the Narrowing Window

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s September 23-25 visit to Washington for a summit meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump was, by most accounts, fairly low on substance, even with limited expectations. The action items coming out of the meeting included reductions in tariffs on select non-sensitive goods, a short extension of the trade truce, an AI (or “SI”) hotline, and promises to meet two more times before year end. The relatively unexciting meeting belies deeper stresses between the two countries, and masks the significant political and structural challenges both leaders face at home. While the mood appeared cooperative (or at least non-confrontational), there are signs that a sanguine perspective may not last far beyond the new year.

• Presidents Trump and Xi largely avoided sensitive issues in their public statements and official readouts of their talks, with no or only passing mentions of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, Chinese security support of Iran, or Chinese rare earth restrictions
• Extending the Busan tariff truce until January 2027 puts increasing pressure on the two upcoming summit meetings planned around China’s hosting of APEC in November and the United States’ hosting of G20 in December
• Despite the attendance of many U.S. technology leaders at the summit banquet, there was little public progress on disruptions to and disagreements over the global technology supply chain, with China making few long-term commitments on critical minerals, the United States not offering additional export waivers, and AI concerns pushed off to some future dialogue and a hotline for reporting incidents.
• Presidents Trump and Xi face political pressures at home, the former from a potential shift in the composition of Congress after the November elections coupled with continued domestic dissatisfaction with economic and overseas war policies, the latter with continued economic constraints and an ongoing political purge that is shifting into factionalism.
• While both leaders are satisfied with symbolic movement while maintaining the status quo, their respective domestic economic and political dynamics may drive both next year toward a more confrontational stance

The Trump-Xi summit was big on pageantry and small on substantive outcomes, matching the expectations of many analysts ahead of the talks. In some ways, this was a best-case outcome, as neither side sought to push their advantage and significantly disrupt the status quo in place since their 2025 Busan meeting. Xi remained relatively muted on Taiwan, and focused instead on a select historical interpretation of past U.S.-Chinese cooperation in the face of an aggressive Japan. Trump made little mention of reports that China is supporting the Iranian military effort, nor did he use language similar to his UN speech about Iran or his meeting a few years ago with Ukraine. Based on the public statements and official readouts, neither side made demands of the other, allowing each to declare small victories (particularly in tariff reductions on select goods) while avoiding any complicating issues.

On the technology front, the summit did little to move the needle - there were no major moves to ease or strengthen technology and material flows between the United States and China (though both sides said they would work together to bring mineral trade back up). The establishment of a Board of Investment may signal the potential for future easing of restrictions in reciprocal technology investment, but Congress may ultimately play a decisive role in that direction. The Artificial Intelligence race came up, and the two sides set up a hotline to respond to any unfortunate incidents, but there were no public discussions on cooperative efforts to manage AI development. As a humorous aside, the official U.S. readout noted that China agreed to call AI “SI” (Super Intelligence), while the official Chinese readout skipped that, and continued to call it AI. While perhaps a bit silly, the divergence showed Beijing’s disinterest, while both readouts included China’s subtle challenge to U.S.-Japan relations by highlighting past defense cooperation. Beijing continues to target Japan politically, with hybrid activities, and through economic constraints, often with direct impacts on the technology supply chain.

Both presidents agreed to meet again this year at the multinational meetings each is hosting - APEC in China in November, the G20 in the United States in December. That they were already planning two additional meetings this year in part explains their willingness to have a relatively uneventful summit on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (which interestingly Xi skipped). But it is also notable that both of these upcoming meetings occur after the U.S. midterm elections. Beijing is clearly watching the direction of U.S. politics as it shapes its next steps in managing its relation with the United States. From China’s perspective, the tariffs are a challenge, but they have already been factored into China’s economic plans and activities. U.S. restrictions on oil from Iran are a bit more troubling, as are overall higher energy prices, but the slight slowing in Chinese economic growth, and access to ample energy from non-oil sources, provide a buffer for Beijing.

Thus the next two Trump-Xi meetings will be heavily influenced by the outcome of the U.S. mid-term elections, as well as U.S. Iran policy after the elections. Polling still suggests the U.S. Congress will be split, and Trump has hinted that the United States may intensify military action against Iran following the mid terms. Neither is necessarily “good” for China, but it doesn’t mean they are likely to grant significant concessions to the United States. A mixed congress in the last half of a U.S. presidential second term traditionally means the President is left to focus almost exclusively on foreign policy. While Trump himself may be seeking legacy deals, there is bipartisan sentiment in Congress to challenge and constrain Chinese military and technology expansion, and strong support for arming Taiwan, which will only add friction to bilateral relations. Meanwhile, any expansion of U.S. military action in Iran would keep energy flows disrupted and undermine Beijing’s attempts to leverage its Gulf Arab partners in BRICS to fund its own infrastructure priorities in Central Asia and Africa.

While U.S. politics will play a significant role in the summits for the remainder of this year, there is a longer-term challenge from China that may drive Beijing’s policies. Since taking power, Xi has carried out a series of purges across the military, Party, and central and provincial governments. These started out as a way to clear out any remnants of loyalty to previous governments, then moved to addressing corruption and inefficiency in government. But the past few years have seen a return to targeting officials who are accused of disloyalty, even though most were appointed by Xi himself. Recent purges have even started citing cliques and factions. This is a worrying sign.

In the post-Deng Xiaoping era, China accepted consensus leadership, and while Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao were the top leaders, they were constrained by a network of differing interest groups and powerful figures. This deterred any bold political action, but also avoided any wrenching policies reminiscent of Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward or Cultural Revolution. Xi was brought in to re-centralize government, to allow China to finally act on deep-seated domestic economic challenges and reshape China’s international stance. But his centralizing tendencies have so concentrated power that there is little outlet for dissent or even alternate opinions, and in a Chinese context that leads to the formation of cliques and factions. If these grow, they will drive the Chinese leadership to focus inward, to battle factions, and to strengthen the wall around China, weakening the chance for major trade or security arrangements with the United States.

Taken together, the short-term dynamics offer room for further cooperation through the end of this year, but as we move out into 2027 and beyond, the domestic situations in China and the United States both constrain significant bilateral cooperation.

Additional author contributions from Ethan Burk