TOI reporter in Washington: US President Donald Trump slowly returned to the White House on Friday carrying seeds of discord from Beijing, despite claims to the contrary. Xi Jinping’s promise to send Chinese rose seeds to the White House Rose Garden was intended as a diplomatic bouquet, but instead underscored the increasingly fraught relationship between the world’s two biggest powers as their 36-hour summit was dominated not by trade or tariffs but by the explosive Taiwan issue.
Although Trump declared his trip to Beijing a “huge success” and a “historic moment” in brief comments to reporters (contrary to his typically gushing engagement), the U.S. foreign policy establishment concluded that the summit exposed a shift in the balance of power and that Taiwan had become a central fault line in Sino-U.S. relations.
US-China Relations.
In the podcast, former Trump communications director Anthony Scaramucci bluntly stated that Trump “had his ass handed to him” in Beijing; former U.S. ambassador Chas Freeman said that Americans underestimated Beijing’s growing influence and power transfer. Chas Freeman acted as translator for the young diplomat Richard Nixon during his breakthrough visit to China.
Now it turns out that what began as a visit ostensibly focused on trade, Iran and economic stability quickly turned into a heated negotiation over Taiwan, with Xi Jinping reportedly warning Trump that mishandling the “Taiwan issue” could jeopardize the “entire relationship” between Beijing and Washington.
Trump’s tone when he returned from the summit sounded decidedly more ambiguous than many Taiwan supporters in Washington had expected. Speaking aboard Air Force One, he repeatedly declined to say whether the United States would defend Taiwan militarily if China launched an attack. In an interview with Fox News, he made his reluctance to get involved in the conflict on the island even clearer.
“I will say this: I don’t want anyone to be independent,” Trump said of Taiwan. “And, you know, we should be traveling 9,500 miles to fight a war. I’m not looking for that. I want them to calm down. I want China to calm down.”
These remarks have triggered alarm among hawks from both parties in Taiwan, who worry that Trump is gradually abandoning Washington’s long-standing “strategic ambiguity” posture and moving towards what some critics call strategic capitulation. The US president also revealed that he discussed arms sales to Taiwan in “detail” with Xi Jinping and refused to commit to a pending $14 billion weapons package for Taipei. Critics say merely discussing potential arms transfers to Taiwan with Beijing could undermine one of President Reagan’s “six assurances” to Taiwan, which pledged that Washington would not consult China on such issues.
The summit also highlighted why Taiwan has become the center of global geopolitics. The island dominates advanced semiconductor manufacturing, producing many of the world’s most advanced chips that are critical to artificial intelligence, military systems and global technology supply chains. Trump himself has highlighted the issue, urging Taiwanese companies to produce chips in the United States.
Meanwhile, Xi Jinping appeared to use the summit to reinforce Beijing’s long-standing position that Taiwan represents China’s ultimate red line, while rejecting a U.S. offer to sell NVidia H-200 chips. Analysts across the ideological spectrum in the United States describe a U.S. president who seems eager to achieve results while Xi Jinping calmly dictates the terms.
The spectacle from the summit ultimately reinforced the view in Washington that China now has a stronger hand. Still, Trump insists he has scored a major business victory. “We have a great deal. We have a great trade deal,” he declared, even as Washington was skeptical of the visit’s outcome, and commentators outside the MAGAsphere appeared to trust the words of Beijing and Tehran more than those of the White House.
Trump claimed that China would order 200 Boeing aircraft, with the final purchase volume reaching 750. However, Beijing did not issue a formal confirmation, and Boeing’s stock price fell sharply as investors expected the immediate order size to be well over 500 aircraft. Trump’s statement that China would buy large amounts of U.S. soybeans, corn and agricultural products was similarly vague. Analysts noted that there were few specific details, with no agreement signed and no detailed tariff framework. Notably, Trump acknowledged that tariffs “did not come up” during his talks with Xi, despite trade tensions being at the heart of the visit.
Trump also appears unable to secure Chinese cooperation on Iran or win concessions on behalf of jailed Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai. During the 2024 campaign, Trump boasted that securing Jimmy Lai’s release would be “easy,” in the same spirit as he claimed he would end the Russia-Ukraine war on day one. “I mentioned Jimmy Lai (to Xi Jinping). I would say the response to that was, uh, not positive,” Trump said in a rare admission of defeat.
Even the final image of the trip reflected the deep distrust behind the diplomatic arrangements. As the U.S. delegation boarded Air Force One, White House security personnel reportedly threw Chinese-issued cellphones, commemorative gifts, pins and souvenirs into a trash can next to the plane’s stairs due to concerns about espionage.