Trade, Iran, Taiwan in focus
U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a bilateral meeting at Gimhae International Airport during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Busan, South Korea, on October 30, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
President Donald Trump is set to meet face-to-face with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a high-stakes summit fraught with risks.
The meetings, scheduled for Thursday and Friday in Beijing, could be a turning point for the rival superpowers, whose fragile relations have soured over the past year alone due to economic and political conflict.
The protracted Iran war and the long-running dispute over Taiwan are also expected to come to the fore in Trump and Xi’s talks. Each of these thorny issues affects not only Washington and Beijing, but also the rest of the world.
“The risks are extraordinarily high,” he said Arthur DongChina expert and professor of strategy and economics at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.
Trump is leaning into this hype. “Great things will happen for both countries!” somehow wrote Real Social post Monday.
But for China, Trump’s visit is just the latest in a series of high-profile meetings with geopolitical implications. An Iranian official met with his Chinese counterparts in Beijing last week, and Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to visit the city days after Trump’s departure.
Analysts of U.S.-China relations say they are keeping their expectations low for the outcome of the meeting as both sides have incentives to ease tensions and avoid international incidents.
He said Trump and Xi want to “reaffirm their relationship and have that kind of stability.” Kyle ChanHe is an expert on US-China relations at the Brookings Institution. “The other stuff is all gravy.”
The White House is framing the meeting in terms of trade and the US economy.
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told reporters on Sunday that Trump’s main goal is to “continue to rebalance relations with China and prioritize reciprocity and fairness to restore America’s economic independence.”
The stakes for the summit will be high and every word out of every leader’s mouth will be analyzed. Things you should pay attention to:
Iranian
A driver rides a scooter along the street near a billboard on the facade of a building depicting the Strait of Hormuz with the words “Forever in Iran’s Hands” written in Persian on May 6, 2026, in Tehran’s Vanak Square.
AFP | Getty Images
In the days after February 28, when the USA and Israel first attacked Iran, some experts thought that this attack could harm Iran. Supporting Trump in his meeting with Xi, scheduled for late March and early April.
Less than two weeks later, Trump said the United States had asked China to postpone the summit because of the Iran war.
Now, as the war drags on far longer than the Trump administration’s previous prediction of a four- to six-week effort, some think China has gained a positional advantage.
“This gives China a degree of leverage,” Dong said, noting that Beijing is Iran’s largest trading partner and the largest buyer of its oil.
“China has a significant amount of influence over Iran,” he said. If Trump tries to end the conflict in its current form, “China will certainly have a role to play.”
China has refrained from directly involving itself in the war, although it did engage in diplomacy last week and hosted Iran’s foreign minister for the first time since hostilities began.
But Trump’s political stance appears increasingly linked to the conflict.
The war triggered a historic global energy supply shock, causing prices for oil, gas, fertilizer, and other products to skyrocket in the United States and around the world. While gas prices have risen in the US, Trump’s support rates have fallen among Americans who view high prices as the biggest source of concern. Various surveys It shows that Americans are also opposed to the war itself, potentially tightening Trump’s political flexibility.
Taiwan
The Taiwanese flag can be seen on the overpass ahead of National Day celebrations in Taipei, Taiwan, on October 8, 2025.
Anne Wang | Reuters
Dong also said U.S. efforts in Iran have shifted the focus away from the Pacific and potentially created vulnerabilities for Taiwan, a U.S. ally and a major semiconductor manufacturer, that China could soon exploit.
“If China is considering an attack, this may be the best moment to do it,” the professor said.
Even if China doesn’t take this action, there are other Taiwan-related pitfalls that Trump will have to avoid during his time with Xi.
Chan said the Chinese are “super focused” on “any shift in language from Trump towards Taiwan.”
USA is a subtle position On Taiwan: He acknowledges that Beijing believes Taiwan is part of China and maintains that there is only one Chinese government. But it also maintains a strong, if unofficial, trade and cultural relationship with Taipei, and remains unclear whether it would defend Taiwan if attacked.
Trump, who frequently speaks in hyperbole in official statements and is known for long, impromptu tangents, could risk falling off the diplomatic rope if he goes too far.
“There were some fears in Washington that Trump would make some kind of comment. [or] Agreeing on a change in language on how the United States views Taiwan’s status would be in line with what Beijing hopes, Chan said.
He said China could take advantage of such a deviation to strengthen its position against Taiwan.
Trump gave an example of how this could play out when he was asked at the White House on Monday whether he expected Taiwan to come up in his talks with Xi.
“Yes, it comes up all the time,” he said, and quickly turned to Russia’s war in Ukraine; He often claimed that he would never have started if he had been president at the time.
“Taiwan, I kind of liken it to that,” he said. “You’ve got the right president, I don’t think that’s going to happen, I think we’ll be fine. I have a very good relationship with President Xi. [who] He knows I don’t want this to happen.”
Trump later stated that China is geographically much closer to Taiwan than the United States, and said, “There is a lot of support for Taiwan from Japan and the countries in that region.”
Asked whether the United States should continue selling weapons to Taiwan, Trump said, “President Xi wants us not to do that, and I’m going to discuss that. That’s one of the many things I’m going to talk about.”
Trump stated that he and Xi got along well, calling him a “great guy.”
The United States does not foresee any change in policy toward Taiwan, a senior U.S. official told reporters Sunday in a phone call previewing the trip.
Trade, tariffs, rare earths and agreements
While geopolitical turmoil comes to the fore, the worrying US-China economic relationship will be the main theme of the summit.
Washington and Beijing were locked in a bitter trade war last year; Much of the contention centered on Trump’s aggressive, morphing tariff policies and China’s retaliation.
Tensions eased in the fall following talks with U.S. trade negotiators and their Chinese counterparts. Trump’s liberal use of tariffs was restricted in February. The Supreme Court struck down global “reciprocal” tariffs as unconstitutional.
Now some US companies are hoping to turn the Trump-Xi summit into new purchasing deals.
The White House said Monday that top executives including Tesla chairman Elon Musk, Apple CEO Tim Cook, BlackRock’s Larry Fink and Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg will travel to China this week as part of a U.S. delegation.
That team of more than a dozen business leaders is smaller than the ones that accompanied Trump on his trip to Saudi Arabia last year, when he was accompanied by more than 30 U.S. executives.
Ortberg said: earnings call It was rumored late last month that China could soon order a “large number” of planes, ending a years-long drought for the US aircraft giant after China bought it from rival Airbus.
Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser, who also attended the meeting, told Bloomberg in November that her company was attracting renewed interest from Chinese investors.
Experts also predict that Trump and Xi could hurt US farmers by announcing that they will buy US soybeans or other agricultural products from China that Beijing boycotted during the trade war.
“The American people can expect the president to make better deals on behalf of our country,” the White House’s Kelly said Sunday. he said.
Expected topics of discussion include the creation of a bilateral board tasked with managing trade between the two countries and another group aimed at “providing an intergovernmental forum for the discussion of investment-related issues”, it said.
“The two sides will also discuss additional agreements covering industry, aviation, agriculture and energy,” Kelly said.
Besides progress on trade deals with China, one of the Trump administration’s biggest hopes for the summit may be finalizing agreements on rare earth elements used in the burgeoning semiconductor industry.
China’s strict export controls on valuable materials increased tensions with the United States last year.
“I think ultimately that’s what’s driving the Trump administration’s willingness to have this good relationship with China,” Chan said.
