September 26, 2026
What Was This Xi Visit About?
There was some pomp around China’s President Xi’s visit and talks in Washington DC. There were however no results.
One wonders then why it at all happened.
A somewhat racist remark in a NY Times report seems to imply that it was Xi who needed the visit:
The trip was certainly a propaganda boost for Mr. Xi, who has sought to cast himself as an equal to Mr. Trump on the world stage.
In my view its exactly the other way around. It was Trump who needed the propaganda boost.
(BTW – in what category and by what measure is the U.S. still superior to China?)
The only outcome of Xi’s visit that will have some consequence is an agreement to prolong the current trade truce between the countries by two months. The visit was unnecessary to achieve that. The agreement on that was made two days before Xi arrived.
The Chinese had hoped for a full year extension of the deal. But the U.S. still seems to thinkit has leverage. It wants China to buy more of its agricultural products:
“Beijing wanted a much longer period of predictability, while Washington has preserved an early opportunity to test Chinese performance and reassess its leverage,” Singleton said. “By January, the administration should know whether China actually delivered on its agricultural commitments.”
“This is less about buying two months of calm than making China earn the next extension,” he added.
But the U.S. has no leverage to press China into buying more soybean – at least not now. When Trump put sky high tariffs on China the country blocked its rare earth exports. The U.S. urgently needs those minerals and has no way to produce them itself. After the rare earth exports were blocked tariffs were lifted. Trump had had to chicken out.
That situation has not changed today and will not have changed a year from now. It is also unlikely that the next two months will give the U.S. more leverage.
Trump and Xi will meet again at the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in China in November and at the G20 Leaders’ Summit in the U.S. in December. There is thus ample chance to further prolong the trade deal.
Everything else, seen from China’s perspective, can wait for some time.
China can continue to sit back and look on while Trump helps the U.S. empire to dismantle itself.