September 17, 2026
What Will the Latest Trump-Xi Summit Bring? Four Experts Set the Stakes.
This article was originally published in Kharon's The Brief.
Ahead of the May summit, there were high hopes for Boeing and soybean sales, agreements on AI and trade, and speculation about large Chinese investments in the United States. Apart from soybean sales, none of it has materialized. The Board of Investment has not moved a single inch.
Both leaders want a big show, and their teams are going through the motions of staging one.
For Beijing to deliver, the political logic has to work from its perspective. Often it gets more from dangling deals, floating trial balloons, and probing for softness that might yield concessions. It knows that stringing American negotiators along can tie Washington in knots and stall actions like tariffs, export controls, and defense packages to Taiwan.
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