On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump arrived in Beijing for his long-awaited summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Both leaders are prioritizing stability in the relationship and extending the trade truce they reached at the APEC meetings in South Korea last October.
While not expected to produce major breakthroughs, the discussions at the summit – on trade, Taiwan, technology, and managing global crises – will set the tone for what comes next in U.S.-China relations.
On trade, Trump hopes to score big on sales of U.S. aircraft and agricultural products. But American lawmakers, along with auto and steel producers, unions, and industry groups, worry that access to the U.S. auto sector might be part of the bargain. In January, while speaking to business executives in Detroit, Trump opined that it would be “great” to “let China come in,” and they are pleading with him to reconsider that idea.
The Trump administration is also proposing the creation of a Board of Trade and a Board of Investment – the former to follow through on verbal commitments made on trade and the latter to address “roadblocks facing specific company investments” in either country. Some analysts say China would benefit from the establishment of these two bodies, as they largely abandon pressure for China to reform its economic system, including subsidizing its industries.
Canada will keep a close eye on what emerges from these discussions. In January, Ottawa agreed to allow imports of up to 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles. Trump’s response to that announcement swung 180 degrees – from indifference to threatening a 100 per cent tariff on Canada.
Fears of Loose Lips and Selling Chips
Beijing will use the summit to press the case on Taiwan, specifically a shift from Washington “not supporting” to explicitly “opposing” the island’s independence. If Trump takes the bait by making an off-the-cuff comment to that effect, it could be interpreted as dismantling decades of assiduously managed U.S. commitments to maintaining the status quo. Unnamed sources close to the White House substantiated that concern, telling Politico that Trump “may not have enough personally invested [in the Taiwan relationship] to stick to the script.”
On technology, the big question is whether Washington will hold the line in protecting key sectors – AI, semiconductors, quantum computing, export controls, and advanced manufacturing. That is now less certain with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who has lobbied Washington to allow him to sell his company’s most advanced chips to China, joining the U.S. delegation.
Meanwhile, Ottawa remains focused on strengthening Canada’s own sovereign technology capacity. On Tuesday, Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation Evan Solomon announced a C$66-million investment to help Canadian companies access the compute power – something needed for the large-scale data centres on which domestic AI infrastructure depends – and to lower Canada’s dependence on foreign-controlled systems.
Finally, the Iran war will loom large. Both leaders are eager for the conflict to end, but are diametrically opposed on at least one issue: Trump wants the regime-change effort to succeed, Beijing does not. In addition, China continues to purchase Iranian oil in defiance of U.S. sanctions. However, Trump seems inclined to set that issue aside lest it derail his other priorities.
The Harder They Fall
Even if Trump and Xi come away with only modest announcements, the event will be imbued with symbolism. Trump originally planned to meet Xi in March when he expected to be riding high off the U.S. military’s ‘wins’ in Venezuela and Iran. Instead, he arrives weakened from the Iran quagmire and facing fresh questions about U.S. economic, diplomatic, and military staying power in the Indo-Pacific.
In contrast, Xi is projecting an air of confidence that China has unquestionably become the more stable and dominant international player, solidifying the narrative China has been telling itself and others that the once-mighty U.S. is now in inevitable decline.
