A consummate dealmaker and showman, President Donald Trump has already declared victory and grabbed global attention ahead of his crucial meeting with Xi Jinping, scheduled for late Wednesday.
“I think we’re going to have a deal,” Trump said Wednesday in Gyeongju, South Korea. “I think it’ll be a good deal for both.”
The president claimed a U.S. trade deal with China was negotiated behind the scenes before he ever set foot in the region for his weeklong diplomatic swing through Asia, culminating in his highly anticipated face-to-face encounter with Xi.
“We don’t just meet in a vacuum; we’ve had a lot of discussions,” Trump said after landing in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Saturday. Again on Monday, he vowed, “We are going to come away with the deal.”
Extreme volatility in relations between Washington and Beijing has thrust the leaders of the world’s two biggest economies straight into the limelight of an international drama with far-reaching economic consequences.
The Trump-Xi meeting is potentially the most consequential hour in global geopolitics this year.
Neil Thomas, Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis
“The Trump-Xi meeting is potentially the most consequential hour in global geopolitics this year,” Neil Thomas, a political analyst at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis, told MSNBC.
With the full backing of the Chinese Communist Party and ironclad control over his military, “Xi is going into this meeting on a political high,” Thomas said.
He and other national security and trade analysts do not foresee any significant diplomatic breakthrough emerging from Wednesday night’s forum in South Korea — regardless of any deal Trump is touting.
“I think going forward, no significant improvement can be achieved during the Trump administration,” cautioned Zongyuan Zoe Liu, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “There is no trust.”
Henrietta Levin, who served in the State Department and National Security Council under both the Biden and the first Trump administrations, also voiced skepticism.
“The U.S.-China relationship has been overtaken by negotiation to manage retaliation,” Levin said. “Often these meetings are a springboard for a more stable period in U.S.-China relations. However, I don’t think we can take that for granted.”
One agreement between Xi and Trump would involve a promise by Beijing to crack down on lethal fentanyl flowing into the U.S. in exchange for a reduction in tariffs on Chinese goods, according to Trump. “I believe that they’re going to help us with the fentanyl situation,” Trump said. “They’re going to be doing what they can do.”
Chinese and U.S. envoys said they laid the groundwork for a trade deal on the sidelines of the East Asia summit in Kuala Lumpur. The Trump-Xi meeting, set to take place Thursday morning local time during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, could last as long as four hours, Trump said at a dinner hosted by South Korean President Lee Jae Myung.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, who met with China’s vice premier, He Lifeng, and top trade negotiator Li Chenggang, said the countries agreed to address multiple sticking points. U.S. officials and analysts expressed optimism that China will avoid a 100% additional tariff that Trump threatened to impose in a dispute over rare earth minerals. If Trump’s threatened levies were put in place as planned, it would be “devastating for the U.S. economy, for the Chinese economy, for the world,” Levin said.
Top Trump aides also indicated they’re confident China, the largest consumer of U.S. soybeans, will end its boycott of the American export. Sources familiar with the matter told MSNBC that the U.S. had already made its concerns known about the decline in purchases to Chinese officials ahead of the summit.
Trump also hopes to finalize a TikTok deal during his trip and deter China’s reliance on Russian oil. For his part, Xi is expected to press Trump on Taiwan, according to sources familiar with the matter, likely inquiring about the U.S. softening its support for the self-governed island.
The last time the two leaders met in person was in 2019 in Osaka, Japan, during Trump’s first term. Trump in recent weeks mused about whether a meeting with Xi would even materialize, at one point saying in a Truth Social post that “there seems to be no reason to do so.”
Trump said that he plans to visit China early next year and that he expects Xi to meet with him either in Washington or at his estate in Palm Beach, Florida. Thomas predicted that Trump will ultimately seek a comprehensive trade deal with China, one that would amount to a “bigger package of deliverables” than this week’s meeting.