Trump Summit China

Beijing Summit Yields Thin Deals and Thinner Strategy

President Trump wrapped up his two-day summit with Xi Jinping in Beijing claiming 'fantastic trade deals,' led by a 200-plane Boeing order, but specifics were notably scarce. More striking was what Trump told Fox News on the sidelines: that his administration's demand for Iran to surrender its uranium is 'more for public relations than anything else' — a rare admission by a sitting president that a major foreign policy position is performative rather than substantive.

The Boeing order, potentially worth $20 billion or more depending on aircraft mix, offers tangible commercial benefits to both economies but leaves unaddressed the structural frictions at the heart of the US-China rivalry: technology transfer rules, intellectual property protections, and the semiconductor export controls that Trade Representative Greer confirmed were not on the summit agenda. Both sides appear to be deliberately compartmentalizing commerce from strategic competition.

Behind the scenes, tensions surfaced visibly. Physical altercations broke out between US and Chinese camera crews during summit coverage, a detail that often reflects broader institutional friction even when principals maintain cordial appearances. Elon Musk, who brought his six-year-old son to Beijing, was simultaneously absent from closing arguments in his OpenAI trial in San Francisco; his lawyer apologized to the court, explaining that Musk was in China with the president.

Markets responded ambivalently. Nvidia surged to a $5.7 trillion market capitalization after the US cleared Chinese firms to purchase H200 AI chips, but broader indices sold off as oil-driven inflation fears revived rate-hike concerns. Trump extended an invitation to Xi to visit the White House in September, but with Taiwan tensions unresolved and semiconductor policy untouched, the fundamental strategic competition between the two powers remained unaddressed.