After a whirlwind two days, Air Force one is wheels up from Beijing and US President Donald Trump is headed home.
For months, Trump’s visit has been billed as a critical opportunity for the US and China to pursue stability and build on recent bilateral momentum.
Understanding the stakes (and their guest), Beijing pulled out all the stops, treating Trump to upgraded protocol, pageantry, and pomp in hopes of putting him in an amenable mood.
To be sure, the vibes were immaculate:
Trump repeatedly expressed his appreciation to his hosts and his “fantastic relationship” with Xi Jinping.
But man cannot live on atmospherics alone and the world wants to know: Where’s the beef?
What tangible deliverables have emerged from this crucial summit between the world’s most powerful men?
At the time of writing, we’re having trouble pointing to much of anything in the concrete outcomes department.
There’s no indication that the two sides found common ground on the trade issues at the heart of the relationship, including tariffs, export controls, rare earth licensing, or even a commitment to a continued trade truce.
We have slightly more color on potential Chinese purchases of American goods with US officials indicating that China plans to buy American ag products and some 200 Boeing planes, though the Chinese side has not confirmed this.
On geopolitics, everyone stuck to their guns. Both sides said their respective piece on Taiwan with no indication of a policy change either way. Likewise, on Iran, China doesn’t appear to have committed to offering any additional help in reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
On the tech front, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the two sides didn’t discuss chip export controls. We also haven’t heard any word on AI safety coordination, which Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent previously said was in the offing.
Disclaimer: It’s fully possible that the two sides have agreed to a big, beautiful bundle of deliverables and are just getting their respective ducks in a row before announcing them.
But for now, the eerie quiet suggests that this visit was more icebreaker than grand bargain.
And while the trip clearly generated positive feelings, a relationship as complicated and consequential as this one needs some institutional anchoring to keep things on an even keel.
Consolation prize: So far, the most interesting outcome has been Xi Jinping’s unveiling of a new framework for managing US-China relations.
Xi said that he and Trump had agreed to establish a “Constructive Strategic Stability Relationship” to serve as the “new positioning” to guide US-China relations through the rest of Trump’s term.
As far as we can tell, this is a new formulation in Chinese diplomacy, specially crafted for China-US ties.
Xi characterized the relationship as being centered on:
“Positive stability centered on cooperation”
“Benign stability characterized by measured competition”
“Normative stability where differences are manageable”
“Enduring stability where peace is attainable”
As with many Chinese political slogans, we’re confident that the exact meaning and functionality of this framework will become clearer over time, but at a minimum, it signals Beijing’s commitment to keeping relations predictable and grounded.
That said, it takes two to tiaowu, and it’s unclear whether Washington feels the same way about keeping ties stable.
More to come? In theory, Xi and Trump could see each other as many as three more times this year.
Xi has a standing invitation to pay Trump a reciprocal visit in the US, and it’s possible they could also meet either at the APEC Summit in Shenzhen in November or the G20 in Miami in December.
These events potentially provide more opportunities for the two leaders to further develop their special relationship.
The bottom line: It’s too soon to call Trump’s visit a success or a failure, but we’ll take our Sino-American dialogue where we can get it.
Even if the other deliverables prove underwhelming, face time between the two big kahunas is a deliverable in itself.
Joe Mazur, Head of Geopolitical Research, Trivium China
What you missed
U.S.-China
On Thursday, the Chinese customs (GAC) portal briefly updated registrations for hundreds of American beef processors to “effective.”
Hopes were high that the US and China had struck a deal to restore market access for the large swath of US meat exporters that have been shut out of China’s market since last year.
But within hours, the portal reverted the registrations to their previous “expired” status.
It’s likely GAC got a little trigger-happy, and the update went live earlier than intended.
Foreign affairs
Top diplomat Wang Yi called Pakistani Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar less than 24 hours before Trump’s scheduled arrival in Beijing on Wednesday.
Dar briefed Wang on recent negotiations with Iran, and Wang urged Islamabad to “intensify its mediation efforts” and help ensure a “proper resolution of the Strait of Hormuz opening issue.”
Around the same time, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth revealed he would join Trump’s trip, making him the first defense secretary to accompany a US president to the People’s Republic.
Econ and finance
Per data released by the stats bureau (NBS) on Monday, producer prices grew 2.8% y/y in April – the second consecutive month of growth, marking a definitive end to China’s three-and-a-half-year deflationary spiral.
The driver is clear: Surging energy and commodity prices in the wake of the Iran war.
Oil and gas mining prices shot up 28.6% y/y, while fuel processing costs rose 14.2% y/y.
China’s export growth bounced back strongly in April. Per trade data released by the –customs bureau (GAC) on May 9:
Exports grew 14.1% y/y in April, reversing March’s sluggish 2.5% growth.
Imports surged 25.3% y/y, broadly in line with the previous month.
China’s trade surplus came in at USD 84.8 billion, down 11.5% from April 2025 levels.
China’s monetary policy is being increasingly guided by international events.
In its Q1 Monetary Policy Report the central bank (PBoC) noted that the Iran war had driven up commodity prices – putting an end to domestic deflation – and that: “The impact of externally driven inflation on the domestic economy warrants close attention.”
It also said it will “better coordinate domestic and international priorities” – phrasing often used by Xi Jinping to refer to aligning domestic development with foreign policy interests.
The PBoC hasn’t previously used the phrase when discussing monetary policy.
Corporates
China’s automakers are accelerating their push to conquer European markets.
On May 5, Spanish media reported that Geely was closing in on the purchase of an assembly line at Ford’s Almussafes plant in Valencia, Spain.
On May 8, Stellantis – the largest shareholder in China’s leading NEV Leapmotor upstart – announced plans to increase production of Leapmotor EVs at two existing plants in Spain.
On Wednesday, the FT reported that leading NEV startup Xpeng was in negotiations with top shareholder Volkswagen and other automakers about acquiring a European manufacturing plant.
Tech
On May 8, four central government agencies – led by the energy regulator (NEA) – jointly released an action plan on deepening synergies between the AI and energy industries.
The plan calls for: clustering computing facilities in renewables-rich regions, developing renewable energy projects dedicated to data centers, and exploring models that use nuclear and hydrogen energy to directly supply power to data centers.
The plan also aims to expand AI deployment across the energy sector, including by developing industry-specific LLMs tailored for energy subsectors.
On Tuesday, the market regulator (SAMR) conditionally approved Tencent’s acquisition of Ximalaya, China’s largest online audio platform, through its music arm Tencent Music Entertainment (TME).
For the first time, SAMR explicitly linked the approval to Beijing’s anti-involution campaign: “This case is of significant importance for maintaining fair competition in China’s online audio and music streaming markets, preventing involution-style competition in the platform space, and promoting innovation and healthy development of the platform economy.”
This marks a stark contrast with the tech crackdown era, when regulators were deeply concerned that big tech acquisitions could undermine competition.
As always, it was a busy week in China.
Thank goodness Trivium China is here to make sure you don’t miss any of the developments that matter.