Donald Trump’s whirlwind trip to Beijing – the first US presidential visit in nearly a decade – wrapped up with much fanfare but little clarity about what was actually achieved.
Trump said on Friday he and Xi Jinping, China’s leader, “settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to solve”. But he didn’t provide much detail on what those solutions were.
“My guess is that despite all the ceremony and summit theatrics, that at the end of the day, this summit will not be that significant,” said Amanda Hsiao, the China director at the Eurasia Group, an advisory and consultancy business. “The core of the relationship hasn’t changed.”
The Chinese readout of Xi and Trump’s final bilateral on Friday gave little concrete information on what had been achieved by the meetings, which have been called the “stalemate summit”.
In the hours after he departed Beijing, Trump provided more detail in an interview with Fox News about what he had discussed with China’s leader. Here is where things stand on the summit’s core issues.
Iran
The crisis in the Middle East loomed large over the talks. In the run-up to, and during, the summit, Trump and officials from his administration gave mixed messages about how much help they were requesting from the Chinese to push Iran to the negotiating table.
“We did discuss Iran,” Trump said on Friday. “We feel very similar about [how] we want it to end. We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. We want the straits open.”
But China will not be drawn on what further support might look like. The foreign ministry said on Friday: “This conflict, which should never have happened, has no reason to continue.”
It added that China “has been working tirelessly to end the fighting and strive for peace”, citing Xi’s four-point proposal for peace in the Middle East, released before the visit.
Trump said on Friday that he was considering lifting sanctions on Chinese companies that purchase Iranian oil, with a decision to come in the next few days.
Taiwan
Trump told Fox News he was still considering whether to move ahead with a major arms package for Taiwan, planned for this year. Nixing the package, which is worth a record $14bn (£10.5bn), would satisfy one of Beijing’s key demands over the self-governing island which it claims.
Observers had expected little movement from the US over Taiwan, and Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, insisted in Beijing that there had been no shift on policy. The US does not formally recognise Taiwan but does supply it with the means to defend itself, with the hope that US weapons will deter Beijing from launching an attack.
“A decision to indefinitely postpone the $14bn package would contradict the Trump administration’s stated priorities of strengthening military deterrence along the first island-chain and preventing a war over Taiwan,” said Hsiao.
Trump said he had made no commitment to Xi on Taiwan. Xi warned Trump that Taiwan was the “most important” issue in the US-China relationship.
Trade
Trump said on Friday he had made “fantastic trade deals” with Xi. But it’s not clear yet what they were. There was talk before the summit of the trade priorities being the three Bs: beef, (soy) beans and Boeings.
The US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, said on Friday he expected China to buy “double-digit billions” worth of US farm goods “over the next three years”. China has not officially confirmed this.
On Boeings, it was announced that China would buy 200 of the US company’s jets, one of Trump’s flagship products that he likes to promote overseas. Trump later said that the number could go up to 750.
There was no news on a comprehensive deal to restore normal trade between the world’s two biggest superpowers. Although there is a truce on the tariff war that Trump launched last year, that is set to expire in November.
Rare earths
Trump’s favourite card in the economic conflict with China is tariffs. Xi’s is rare earths. China restricted the export of the critical minerals last year, crippling global supply chains and forcing the US to the negotiating table.
Although China agreed to restore the flow of the commodities in October when the US and China signed a trade war truce, Greer said on Friday that China was still being slow to approve export licenses. He said US officials sometimes had to intervene on behalf of affected companies.
Chinese state media did not mention rare earths during the summit, and Trump appears to have left Beijing without an agreement on their supplies.
Human rights
Trump said on Friday Xi was seriously considering releasing pastors detained in China, but the case of the Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai was a “tough one”.
Lai, a pro-democracy activist, was sentenced to 20 years in prison last year. His family have personally appealed to Trump for help in securing his release. Lai’s daughter Claire told the Associated Press on Friday: “I am confident he and his administration will be the ones to free my father.”
Additional research by Yu-chen Li