Last week, People’s Republic of China (PRC) President Xi Jinping visited the White House for the second face-to-face meeting this year with his American counterpart, President Donald Trump. Across every critical priority, the Trump administration made the same strategic mistake: trading durable structural leverage for procedural dialogue, temporary truces, and transactional sweeteners. By prioritizing diplomatic theatrics over tangible policy victories, the Trump administration allowed Beijing to walk away from last week’s summit with its strategic advantages intact while leaving the American people no safer, no more secure, and no more prosperous.
Artificial intelligence (AI)
Ahead of the leader summit, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and PRC Vice Premier He Lifeng announced a bilateral AI dialogue—which will supposedly meet in November—and proposed an emergency hotline to manage severe AI-driven national security incidents. While establishing communication is a necessary baseline, Trump has publicly rejected the need to pace or pause AI development so that safety measures can keep up with ever more powerful AI models. While Xi called for keeping AI under human control, Trump said fears about rogue AI are a “hoax” and that things are fine the way they are, encouraging U.S. labs to charge ahead on AI development even as industry leaders share serious concerns about loss of control of the most advanced agentic models.
Score: D
Fentanyl
Beijing’s pre-summit moves to schedule a new class of fentanyl-related substances, to restrict two additional precursor chemicals, and to introduce new criminal enforcement rules were welcome unilateral steps. Beijing’s recent targeted arrests of precursor chemical manufacturers proved it can enforce these rules when it wants. The White House readout from the summit said the two leaders “strongly encourag[ed] the permanent scheduling” of these chemicals, while the PRC readout said that they “commended the tangible results” of prior actions. But to really put a dent in global production and trafficking of synthetic opioids, verifiable enforcement mechanisms and global precursor export controls are needed.
Score: C
Trade and overcapacity
U.S. manufacturers are facing an onslaught of predatory Chinese exports driven by massive PRC-supported subsidies. Yet rather than providing the strategic and targeted trade protection U.S. producers need, the administration delayed a planned 7.5 percent tariff designed to counter China’s market-distorting practices. What’s worse, it did not win any concessions from Beijing on loosening export controls of critical minerals essential to manufacturers in the United States. The Trump administration also agreed to reciprocal tariff cuts on $30 billion in nonsensitive goods and settled for announcements of one-off purchase commitments for coal and soybeans—even as purchase orders for the 200 Boeing airliners touted as a deliverable following Trump’s May visit to Beijing have yet to materialize.
Bizarrely, the Trump administration is lowering tariffs on exports from the world’s most predatory mercantilist power—the PRC—to “most favored nation” levels while raising them on strategic allies such as Canada. Many of the United States’ most important partners and allies now face higher tariff rates than China. The United States should be doing precisely the opposite—working with its like-minded partners to counter the PRC industrial juggernaut before it dominates even more key manufacturing and tech sectors.
Score: D
Protecting Americans
The release of wrongfully detained Americans—including Dr. Youlin Chen, a seismologist, and Min Zin, a scholar—alongside those prevented from leaving China by exit bans should have been a top priority. While there may have been private conversations between the two sides about these cases that may eventually bear fruit, there was no evidence of such diplomacy during the visit. Bringing Americans home has been a key Trump administration priority through both of its terms, making this omission even more apparent. The readout also made no mention of transnational repression—intimidation, harassment, coercion, or violence toward individuals by foreign governments. Perhaps Trump chose not to raise tough topics such as these in order to avoid upsetting his guest. If so, it was a tragic abdication of the U.S. government’s primary responsibility: to protect American citizens.
Score: F
Geopolitics
Beijing’s state mouthpieces immediately reported that Xi pressed Trump to break long-standing U.S. policy on Taiwan and “adhere to the correct position of opposing ‘Taiwan independence.’” The White House readout made no mention of Taiwan at all. In fact, the Trump-appointed ambassador to China, David Perdue, revealed that Trump offered to sell weapons to Xi—although selling arms to the PRC is illegal under U.S. law. This bizarre news strikes a jarring contrast with Trump’s ongoing pause on a $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan, which is expending tax dollars and political capital to invest in the island democracy’s ability to defend itself from PRC aggression. There was no mention of dangerously provocative PRC bullying of Taiwan as well as U.S. treaty allies Japan and the Philippines. Nor did Trump mention China’s lifeline to Russia’s war effort in Ukraine or its support to Iran, which facilitated a strike that killed three U.S. service members in Jordan. President Trump even publicly downplayed PRC support for Tehran, stating Xi had “behaved reasonably well” on Iran.
By giving Xi a pass on enabling U.S. adversaries and leaving U.S. partners in the dust, the Trump administration signaled that allied security is subordinate to short-term photo-ops and his personal rapport with Xi.
Score: F
If the Trump administration wants to pass the test on China, it must stop settling for procedural truces and bromance theater and start leveraging real American power to secure durable, measurable results.
Conclusion
The Trump administration did not just weaken America’s position; it handed Beijing a major narrative triumph. China was permitted to pose as a cooperative partner on AI and fentanyl while letting its state-subsidized economy continue to steamroll U.S. factories and workers, keeping wrongfully detained Americans in prison, propping up adversaries in Moscow and Tehran, and lecturing Washington on Taiwan.
With two more face-to-face summits scheduled before the end of the year, President Trump will soon have had a historically unprecedented four meetings with Xi Jinping in one year. The administration still has time to change course. But if the Trump administration wants to pass the test on China, it must stop settling for procedural truces and bromance theater and start leveraging real American power to secure durable, measurable results.
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