A Trump-Xi Summit Scorecard
When President Donald Trump chose to personally greet his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, upon arrival at Andrews Air Force Base and host him for a lavish White House dinner, the US leader was betting that according his guest the trappings of respect and status would help advance his policy agenda with Beijing. The verdict on Trump’s success is mixed. He secured some concrete economic commitments, but Xi came away with a larger diplomatic and strategic win.
The president’s priority was securing a reliable supply of rare earths and other critical minerals for American companies. As part of an October 2025 Sino-American trade war truce reached in Busan, South Korea, China promised to ensure the flow of the metals to the United States and its allies. But according to the Financial Times, Beijing is meeting only two-thirds of its commitments. The US fact sheet released after the recent summit states that the two countries would “continue to work on US concerns regarding supply chain shortages … with the goal of ensuring shipment levels return to appropriate levels”. The Chinese readout does not mention rare earths or critical minerals. On one of Trump’s most important objectives, the summit produced only a promise to keep talking. There was no clear Chinese commitment.
On Iran, another Trump priority, Xi apparently repeated positions that he took when the two leaders met in Beijing in May. The US fact sheet reiterates that the two leaders agreed Tehran can never have a nuclear weapon and that no country or institution can be allowed to charge tolls on international waterways. Unlike the White House fact sheet issued after that meeting, this latest one does not reaffirm a shared call to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. More notably, there is no mention of possible reductions of Chinese purchases of Iranian crude or promises to stop providing Iranian companies with geospatial data and satellite imagery, both of which the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is reportedly using to attack commercial and military shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and to launch precision strikes on US military bases in the Middle East. The public summit documents give no indication that Beijing agreed to constrain its actions in either area.
An Eye on the Election
With the US midterms approaching, Trump hoped to win the votes of American farmers by securing Chinese commitments to buy large quantities of US agricultural goods. Chinese purchases of soybeans have picked up in recent months, but sales of beef, sorghum, and corn have disappointed. On another business matter, no new Boeing deals were announced beyond the agreement for 200 jets reached at May’s meeting. The latest summit, however, produced a Chinese commitment to import at least 10 million metric tons of US coal annually in 2027 and 2028. On the credit side of the ledger, the White House announced the operationalization of the US-China Board of Trade and Board of Investment and recommendations for reciprocal tariff reductions covering $30 billion of non-sensitive goods trade in each direction.
Regarding illegal drugs, the Trump administration has increased pressure on China to reduce flows of fentanyl precursors to the United States. The US fact sheet credits Beijing with several steps taken ahead of the September summit, including new export controls on two fentanyl precursor chemicals and the arrest of 21 Chinese citizens for manufacturing and distributing precursor chemicals to illicit drug producers in North America. Yet, China’s record in this area remains one of incremental, reactive enforcement rather than sustained dismantling of the precursor supply chain. The recent meeting nevertheless produced evidence of continued law-enforcement cooperation, with both sides citing joint cases involving precursor chemicals and other new psychoactive substances.
There was, however, no progress on Trump’s repeated proposal for trilateral arms control negotiations among China, Russia, and the United States. There is no indication Xi responded to the idea.
Finally, despite the absence of any public confirmation, Trump likely raised the unlawful detention of two Americans in China. Dr. Youlin Chen, a seismologist, and Min Zin, a Myanmar scholar, are being held on espionage charges. The president has prioritized detainee releases throughout his administrations, securing one from China last May. The White House claims that, as of March 2026, it has brought home 105 wrongfully detained individuals since Trump returned to power. There has been no sign, however, that the summit produced progress on the Chen or Zin cases.
Crossing the Strait
According to Xinhua and the Chinese foreign ministry, Xi urged Washington to "adhere to the correct position of opposing 'Taiwan independence'" and to handle the Taiwan question with caution. The island goes unmentioned in the White House fact sheet, but Trump told reporters afterward that Xi “understands very much how I feel” about it. In May, the two leaders had a lengthy conversation about Taiwan that led Trump to tell Fox News that he did not want the United States to fight a war 9,500 miles away and that “I’m not looking to have somebody go independent,” suggesting he favors constraining Taiwan President Lai Ching-te’s room for maneuver. He also asserted that American arms sales to Taiwan are a useful negotiating chip. The president has reportedly delayed a $14 billion arms package to Taipei, and it is uncertain if Xi left Washington confident that Trump will withhold further arms sales this year. The absence of Taiwan from the White House fact sheet, set alongside its prominent place in Beijing’s account, is telling. Taiwan remains a central Chinese demand. David Purdue, the US ambassador to China, confirmed that American arms sales to Taiwan were discussed, but there is no public evidence that Trump committed himself to proceeding with the package.
Although the two leaders did not resolve any major structural problem in the bilateral relationship, they agreed that officials on both sides would soon convene to discuss trade, investment, and AI. They also agreed to establish a bilateral AI dialogue and an incident-communication channel, and, according to the Chinese readout only, to a memorandum of understanding on crisis communication and prevention between the two countries’ militaries. Oddly, the US fact sheet omits this. Trump and Xi also confirmed their intention to meet later this year at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in Shenzhen and at the G-20 meeting in Doral, Florida. These plans should help sustain stable Sino-American relations through the year’s end and possibly beyond. This would serve both countries’ interests, but stability carries particular strategic value for Xi. It gives Beijing time to build its economic, technological, and military capabilities for the longer-term competition. US acceptance of Beijing’s formulation of a relationship of “constructive strategic stability—first floated in May and included in the formal understandings reached at the Washington summit, with the addition of the US-introduced phrase “fairness and reciprocity”—is especially beneficial for China. It helps set the boundaries for US-China competition while preserving Beijing’s freedom to pursue its own long-term objectives.
For Xi, the symbolism of exceptional respect from the US president carries crucial domestic value. It reinforces the Chinese leader’s claim that his country has regained great-power status and that his leadership has restored its international standing. Images of Xi receiving the highest diplomatic honors in Washington can be presented to audiences in China as evidence of major strides toward national rejuvenation and of American recognition of the country’s status. The images also give Xi more political latitude to negotiate with Washington without appearing to have yielded to US pressure. That combination of status and negotiating room is especially valuable because it lets Xi maintain the narrative that China is dealing with the United States from a position of strength. With the 21st Party Congress slated to occur in 2027, Xi’s ability to produce domestic political value from demonstrating China’s international stature is especially salient.
Small Steps
Expectations for the Trump-Xi summit were modest, and the meeting largely delivered what those modest expectations promised: a continued trade war truce, additional economic mechanisms, limited cooperation on fentanyl and AI, and an effort to stabilize the broader relationship. Trump obtained some concrete commitments, but several of his most consequential objectives—reliable rare-earth supplies, greater Chinese pressure on Iran, progress on detained Americans, and trilateral arms-control talks—remain unresolved.
The larger missed opportunity goes beyond the bilateral scorecard. The leaders of the world’s two largest economies had a chance to show that intense strategic competition need not rule out cooperation on problems that neither country can manage alone. Instead, the summit prioritized preserving a fragile trade truce and showcasing personal rapport while leaving largely untouched the deeper sources of instability: economic imbalances, AI risks, technology competition, Taiwan, and the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. The result was a summit that managed the US-China relationship without addressing the broader challenges that make it so consequential.
The views expressed herein are those solely of the author(s). GMF as an institution does not take positions.