Xi Has the Upper Hand Going Into His Meeting With Trump

U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, are set to meet in Beijing on May 14-15. Their summit will take place against the backdrop of a notable reversal of fortunes: whereas Trump appeared to have a clear plan for, if not the upper hand in, negotiations with Xi in the aftermath of the “Liberation Day” tariffs that his administration rolled out in April 2025, the opposite now holds.

Trump returned to office last year intent on recalibrating bilateral trade ties with China: Using intense, sustained tariff pressure, he hoped to achieve a more balanced economic relationship that would, in turn, pave the way for wider-ranging cooperation between Washington and Beijing. (Three days before being inaugurated, Trump spoke with Xi and conveyed his “expectation that we will solve many problems together, and starting immediately.”)

Administration officials were confident that they could make progress toward that objective in part because of the economic challenges that China was confronting then and continues to face: slowing growth, demographic decline and mounting municipal-level debt, to name but a few.

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