NEW YORK — With a summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping set for the 24th at the White House in Washington, the two governments are preparing for it with unusually little friction. The leading interpretation is that Trump does not want to provoke Xi, given the U.S. midterm elections on Nov. 3 and the tangled situation in the Middle East. Many observers expect the main item on the agenda to be how to control the safety risks of artificial intelligence — unlike the October meeting, which centered on rare earths, soybeans and semiconductors, and the May talks, which took up the Middle East and Taiwan. Developers of AI models have recently argued for what is known as slowing the pace, warning that AI could slip beyond human control, and Washington may sound out Beijing on cooperating in that area. The prevailing view, however, is that Xi is very unlikely to show interest, since the dangers of AI are a point pressed unilaterally by leading U.S. companies. Diplomatic circles therefore see a chance that Trump will keep the summit relatively quiet, extending the trade truce between the two countries and ending it as a show of friendship with Xi.
Xi to visit the U.S. from the 23rd to the 25th; chances slim that Beijing accepts a U.S. offer to cooperate on AI safety
Xi will enter the United States on the 23rd and sit down with Trump at the White House on the 24th, according to major foreign news outlets on the 17th. It will be the third such event since Trump's second term began, following their meeting in Busan on Oct. 30 last year on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, and their talks during Trump's visit to Beijing on May 14-15 this year. Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, will also attend a state dinner Trump is hosting at the White House. He will not attend the U.N. General Assembly in New York and will depart for China on the 25th. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng agreed to meet in New York on the 20th to coordinate the summit agenda.
AI safety is likely to be discussed intensively at the meeting, alongside the U.S.-China trade conflict and geopolitical issues such as Taiwan and the Middle East that the two sides have taken up before. Leading U.S. developers of closed AI models — Anthropic, which built Claude; OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT; Google, with Gemini; and xAI, with Grok — have recently spoken in unison about the dangers of AI. Bessent told U.S. online outlet Axios on the 16th that Washington is open to talks aimed at avoiding risks both sides face in common and at preventing the two countries' AI systems from decoupling from each other.
The problem is that the odds of China accepting are very low. Beijing views AI safety regulation and calls to slow the pace as a U.S. threat meant to constrain the development of its own industry. In July, China joined Russia and others in setting up the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, a counter to the U.S.-led Pax Silica initiative. Pax Silica is an AI supply chain body created in December last year under U.S. State Department leadership to check China. South Korea is one of its main participants. China's major AI models — Moonshot AI, DeepSeek, Alibaba, MiniMax and Z.AI — are also expanding their reach on an open-source approach, unlike their U.S. counterparts. For that reason, many in diplomatic circles say it would count as a success if the two countries agree on even minimal institutional safeguards to avoid a head-on clash. Speaking to reporters in Dublin on the 13th, Trump said he wants to stay ahead of China in AI and that while safeguards can be put in place, there are plenty of negative forces raising things that need not be raised.
The trade truce — built around Chinese rare earth exports and soybean purchases, and U.S. exemptions from steep tariffs and permission for some AI chip exports — is likely to be extended beyond its current Nov. 10 expiry. At their Busan summit on Oct. 30 last year, the two leaders pushed the truce back by a year to align with the U.S. midterm election period.
Bloomberg reported on the 17th that the Trump administration will also delay so-called overproduction tariffs on major trading partners until after the summit. The administration had initially set the overproduction tariff rate on Chinese goods at 7.5%, according to Bloomberg. On July 24, the U.S. Trade Representative imposed forced labor tariffs of 10% to 12.5% on 60 economies, including China, South Korea, the European Union, Japan and India, under Section 301 of the Trade Act. It signaled at the time that overproduction tariffs would be added on top. China has been hit with the 12.5% forced labor tariff on top of existing steep duties.
He Yadong, a spokesperson for China's Ministry of Commerce, said at a news conference on the 17th that the two sides are continuing talks on tariff cuts worth $30 billion (about 6.2 trillion won). At their May summit, the two countries agreed to set up a trade committee, a body meant to cut tariffs on $30 billion each of non-sensitive goods from the other side.
Truce length at issue — six months vs. the rest of Trump's term; Taiwan, Iran and North Korea may get only general discussion
The two sides agree on extending the truce but differ on how long. Washington wants a six-month extension, while Beijing is pushing to set the term at the remainder of Trump's presidency, according to reports. Another point of contention is a U.S. demand that China ease even its restrictions on rare earth exports to Japan. Washington believes the Chinese measure also affects its own supply chains.
On Taiwan, both leaders are likely to repeat the positions they set out at the May meeting. If Xi again presses hard for a halt to arms sales and for non-intervention in cross-strait affairs, Trump may respond ambiguously.
On the war with Iran, whose front lines have already spread to the Red Sea area, Trump may also not want Xi to play the kind of active mediating role he sought before. Trump is currently trying to say as little as possible about a Middle East issue that is politically damaging for him ahead of the midterms. Asked in Dublin on the 12th when the war with Iran would end, Trump said it would probably be just after the midterm elections and that oil prices would plunge when that happens. That suggests he may not push to end the Middle East war before the election, even at the cost of asking Beijing for help. On that front, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke by phone on the 17th and exchanged views on the situation in the Middle East. With the summit approaching, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi visited China on the 16th and met Wang.
Whether the two leaders will take up North Korea is another point of global interest. Trump has recently been pursuing a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, in part as a way to change the subject. The Wall Street Journal reported in detail on the 18th of last month that Trump had told aides to pursue a summit with Kim as early as this fall. One analysis holds that an Asia trip tied to the APEC summit in Shenzhen, China, on Nov. 18-19 could be the target date. Last month Trump ordered a sharp scaling back of the Ulchi Freedom Shield joint military exercise with South Korea and referred to North Korea as a nuclear weapons state with 57 nuclear warheads.
Trump also sought a meeting with Kim when he traveled through Asia last year on the occasion of the APEC summit in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province. Intense behind-the-scenes coordination with Pyongyang on a surprise meeting failed to produce one, because of the tight schedule. A former senior U.S. security official told a press briefing in Washington on the 16th that no new outcome would emerge from this summit either, because China does not want a situation in which North Korea tilts toward the United States.
Corporate gains hard to expect as China weighs including U.S.-sanctioned BYD; Trump's second airport welcome after Putin
Fresh corporate deals also appear unlikely to amount to much. On the U.S. side, Apple Executive Chairman Tim Cook and OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman will attend the state dinner at the White House on the 24th. Cook stepped down as chief executive on the 1st of this month and now handles government affairs related to the White House and China, according to Bloomberg. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who has steadily pushed to resume exports to China, is also expected to attend the dinner.
Bloomberg reported that China is discussing whether to include figures such as BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu, head of the electric vehicle maker, in its business delegation. The United States currently imposes a 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles, effectively blocking market entry. BYD was also added to a U.S. Defense Department blacklist in June over suspected ties to the People's Liberation Army. Including the head of a sanctioned company in Xi's delegation, regardless of any economic payoff, points to Beijing's intent to highlight its resolve to build an independent industrial base.
With expectations already low before the talks begin, many see the event ending as a political show in which the leaders of the world's two biggest powers do little more than display a close relationship. Trump is also moving to treat Xi lavishly as a state guest. He plans to go in person to Joint Base Andrews near Washington at around 4 p.m. on the 23rd to greet Xi, according to AFP and other outlets. It will be only the second time in his second term that Trump has gone to an airport himself to welcome a foreign leader, after Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska on Aug. 15 last year. Trump will also hold a welcoming ceremony for Xi at Joint Base Andrews that day. The move is read as a strategy to win over Xi, who wants to appear Trump's equal. When Trump arrived at Beijing Capital International Airport on May 13, it was Vice President Han Zheng, not Xi, who came out as the greeting representative.
The United States also held a ceremony on the 16th, attended by Chinese officials, to return 58 cultural artifacts including Buddhist statues, stone sculptures and fossils. Among them was a bodhisattva statue from the Tianlongshan Grottoes in Shanxi province, looted more than a century ago and passed through foreign hands since. The two countries have cooperated on preventing trafficking in cultural property, cracking down on related crimes and promoting the return of artifacts since signing a cooperation document in 2009.
In sum, neither side appears to be aiming for major substantive gains at this summit. AI safety is rising as an issue, but it is far removed from China's interests. The key question is how long the trade truce will run. Even there, with Washington seeking at least six months, the immediate impact on financial markets is expected to be limited.
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