The summit between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Sept. 24 in Washington, during Xi’s three-day state visit to the United States, unfolded as a balancing act aimed at managing competition and simmering tensions, with both sides securing some important gains.
Among the various agreements reached during the summit, the most important included an extension of the trade truce by two months; an agreement on reciprocal tariff reductions covering roughly $30 billion of goods in each direction, largely involving non-sensitive products; China’s agreement to buy at least 10 million metric tons of U.S. coal in 2027 and 2028; and a deal to strengthen military-to-military crisis communication and work toward a memorandum intended to prevent military incidents from escalating.
However, the U.S. did not announce any change to its Taiwan policy, as demanded by Beijing, which sees Taiwan as a rightful part of its People’s Republic of China (PRC). There was no comprehensive trade deal, rare earths remained unresolved, and the two sides decided to establish a new AI communication channel.
Kanishkan Sathasivam, a professor of international relations in the Department of Politics, Policy and International Relations at Salem State University, Massachusetts, said the summit unfolded in an expected manner.
“There were no surprises, and all the announced agreements and deals were standard fare and well-established beforehand,” Sathasivam said.
Trade truce extended, other deals reached
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The U.S. and Chinese sides operationalized some mechanisms and agreed on a set of trade commitments. The most important was an extension of the trade truce, reached during the April–May 2025 escalation of the trade war, for two months.
The trade truce was originally due to expire on Nov. 10, 2026, but will now expire on Jan. 10, 2027. Experts said the extension further postponed tensions between the U.S. and the PRC that might have otherwise deepened the trade conflict, while neither side has a clear advantage over the other.
“Neither side has a clear advantage over the other when it comes to trade – owing to the US having moved so much of its industry and manufacturing to China over the last 30 years and also handcuffing America’s mining industry and practically destroying the US mineral processing industry,” Ret. Col. Grant Newsham, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who is now an Asia geopolitical analyst, told Vision Times.
Ilaria Mazzocco, Deputy Director and Senior Fellow at the Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics, said in a commentary for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) that despite the extension of the economic ceasefire, the summit had not answered questions about the strategic goals of the U.S. China policy.
“Should any larger deal be achieved, it will only be announced later in the year, after Trump’s visit to Shenzhen in November for the APEC leaders’ meeting and Xi’s trip to Miami in December for the G20 summit, which have now been confirmed,” Mazzocco said.
Newsham said that if the U.S. increased tariffs and further tightened technology exports to China, it would cause additional harm to the Chinese economy. If the PRC tightened its chokehold on critical materials and magnets, to name a couple of such items, it would deliver a heavy blow to U.S. industry.
“Beijing would like the US to continue current tariff and technology restrictions at current levels for the remainder of the Trump administration,” he said. “So both sides are in an uneasy, uncomfortable stand-off for the near-term.”
In addition to the trade truce extension, Xi and Trump agreed on reciprocal tariff reductions covering roughly $30 billion of goods in each direction, largely involving non-sensitive products. Newsham said that $30 billion is not a huge amount in terms of overall trade or the size of either country’s economy.
“But it does offer some benefits for specific industries – such as China’s consumer goods businesses and US agriculture and medical equipment makers,” he said.
China also agreed to buy at least 10 million metric tons of U.S. coal in 2027–28. Newsham added that given China’s prodigious coal consumption, it can always use the extra supply.
“But the real reason might be as a gesture to make the US happy and thus less inclined to increase tariffs and tighten technology controls – or even implement a ‘reverse CFIUS’ [Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] that closely monitors US investments into China – and even worse, get other free nations to also crack down on China on the trade front,” he said.
Military crisis communication, Taiwan, rare earths, and AI
The U.S. and China also agreed to strengthen military-to-military crisis communication and work toward a memorandum intended to prevent military incidents from escalating.
Newsham said this offers no practical advantage to the United States because sufficient, time-tested communication channels between the U.S. and Chinese militaries already exist, and that the deal merely reinforces the American belief that all engagement is good engagement.
“The Chinese never make use of them. Also, the supposed need to prevent misunderstandings and miscalculations is another fantasy. The Chinese know exactly what they are doing when they send out the PLA,” Newsham said.
The proposed memorandum to prevent military escalation could create an impression that the U.S. and China are becoming more serious about working out their differences.
“This in turn leads to a certain amount of ‘threat deflation’ on the US side – thinking that China and the PLA really aren’t enemies and just have to talk more and get to know each other better,” said Newsham.
In addition to the military-to-military communication agreement, there was no comprehensive trade deal, rare earths remained unresolved, and the two sides decided to establish a new AI communication channel.
“There is potential for cooperation on AI, as both sides have reason to fear models escaping the control of engineers. But differences over how and why to cooperate will likely prevent this issue from providing ballast for the overall U.S.-China relationship,” said Thomas J. Christensen, Pritzker Chair at the Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Newsham believes the AI “communication channel” is simply an agreement to perhaps “talk about AI” sometime in the future. “But neither side showed a willingness to slow or delay their own AI development activities.”
Apart from these issues, Taiwan remained a major strategic fault line, with Xi stressing to Washington the need to adhere to Beijing’s opposition to “Taiwan independence.” However, the U.S. did not announce any change in its Taiwan policy.
Edgard D. Kagan, Senior Adviser and Freeman Chair in China Studies, wrote in his commentary for CSIS that Indo-Pacific nations will be relieved that President Trump did not acquiesce to Beijing’s demands to change his administration’s Taiwan policy. However, many will also worry about U.S. credibility and deterrence being tested if it warms up to the PRC without receiving substantial concessions from Beijing.
“That both official readouts highlighted cooperation during World War II isn’t just a sign of limited progress—it reinforces Beijing’s efforts to paint Japan as a threat,” Kagan said.
The official readout of the summit released by the White House mentioned that both leaders recalled how the United States and China were allies in World War II and fought side by side for victory, which was achieved with Imperial Japan’s surrender in 1945.
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