President Donald Trump will arrive in Beijing on Wednesday evening for his first trip to China since 2017. Compared with that visit almost a decade ago, Trump is in a far weaker position to push his agenda, and Chinese President Xi Jinping is better positioned to exploit his vulnerabilities.
It’s a high-stakes visit during which Trump, in face-to-face meetings with Xi, is expected to negotiate issues including the war with Iran, trade, artificial intelligence and Taiwan. But Trump will start on his back foot.
The president’s ill-fated “excursion” in Iran will be top of mind for him and Xi, but it weighs on them differently. The choice to enter the war alongside Israel is arguably the biggest political error of Trump’s career. He has caused a global economic crisis, his poll numbers have plunged to new lows, the isolationist wing of his party has turned against him, and his already poor international reputation is in tatters. Trump needs the war to end as quickly as possible to forestall a lingering economic downturn before the midterm elections.
While the U.S. and China have a shared interest in ending the war, Trump is more desperate for it.
By contrast, Xi, who is in the middle of an unprecedented third term, has only consolidated political power in China over the past decade. He remains confident as a global player and is not pressed over Iran in the same way Trump is. To be sure, China wants the war to end: It imports oil through the Strait of Hormuz, and no country is immune to a possible global recession triggered by an endless war. But China’s energy independence means it’s much more resilient than the U.S. in the face of spiking oil prices. And if Iran is able to take its time to negotiate favorable terms for ending the war, then China may benefit from its empowerment —with, for example, more nuclear capabilities and some degree of control over Hormuz — as a counterbalance to U.S. power in the Middle East.
So while the U.S. and China have a shared interest in ending the war, Trump is more desperate for it. He will want to persuade Xi to diplomatically press Iran to accept a deal as aggressively as possible, and will in effect be asking for help to sort out his own mess. China has been encouraging Iran to engage in diplomacy, but it doesn’t have to do the U.S.’ bidding, and Trump’s desperation leaves him with less political capital to burn on other issues.
When it comes to economic rivalry between the two countries, Trump is also dealing with a weakened hand. With the Supreme Court having nullified most of his tariffs, the president has less leverage to make trade war threats. Moreover, as The New York Times points out, in recent weeks “China has made clear that it no longer fears another escalation” by signaling an appetite for economic confrontation in the run-up to the summit. China “reached for a new legal mechanism to counter U.S. sanctions,” the Times reports. “It blocked Meta’s acquisition of a promising A.I. start-up founded in China. And it codified rules aimed at punishing foreign businesses that comply with Western efforts to pull back from China.” The message is that Beijing isn’t messing around.
China may be inclined to cut optics-friendly deals with Trump, such as buying Boeing aircraft and other U.S. goods. Trump can tout those agreements as a sign of his dealmaking prowess. But China is not as likely to make concessions on its increasingly expansive regulatory regime, which effectively forces international companies to choose between China and the U.S. And Xi may wager that Trump is a bit more wary of the kind of economic warfare that would push the price of goods and gasoline even higher at home.
Xi’s power relative to Trump is likely to make him feel especially emboldened to push back against U.S. support for Taiwan, the island that the Chinese Communist Party has never governed but claims belongs to China. He might push Trump to slow weapon sales to Taiwan in the future, or to say he opposes Taiwanese independence.
China also has one other tool at its disposal with Trump: flattery. Last time Trump visited China, the country went above and beyond to impress him with extraordinarily lavish celebrations, which experts said went beyond the kind of reception international leaders typically get. As his power slips, Trump appears more desperate than ever for things that make him feel important. Beijing is poised to do that — while also doing everything it can to render him less important on the global stage.
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