What Trump’s China Visit Actually Achieved

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Luke Vargas (0:33)

As President Trump departs China, we'll recap what did and didn't get accomplished.

SPEAKER_3 (0:38)

This has been an incredible visit.

I think a lot of good has come of it. We've made some fantastic trade deals, great for both countries.

Luke Vargas (0:50)

Plus the Supreme Court preserves widespread access to abortion pills, and the head of the CIA lands in Havana as Cuba's communist regime grapples with the US energy blockade. It's Friday, May 15th. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM Edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today.

President Trump has wrapped up a two-day summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. So what did the two leaders achieve? Journal White House reporter Annie Linskey is in Beijing this morning. Annie, we had been led to believe this could be an announcement-heavy trip, and yet Trump is now wheels up from Beijing, and there's not a whole lot to speak of, is there?

Annie Linskey (1:36)

Yes, Air Force One left Beijing a few hours ago at this point, and the deals that were previewed and expected have yet to materialize. There was a talk of a board of trade, there was talk of a board of investments, there was talk of deals in agriculture and soybeans, and look, some of those deals, cabinet-level officials are saying they are underway. There was a deal on Boeing airplanes, the Chinese will be buying 200 Boeing planes. That's down from the expected 500, and you could see the market reaction when the Boeing stock dipped on that news.

Luke Vargas (2:09)

And a few other areas where it sounds like the US has made an announcement, we haven't gotten confirmation of that from the Chinese side, for instance, buying more US oil.

Annie Linskey (2:17)

Yes, that was something that a White House official and then later the president confirmed that there are talks about the Chinese increasing their purchasing of US oil, as one White House official put it, to be less dependent on the Strait of Hormuz. That sends a signal to Tehran that the Chinese are impatient with the closure of the Strait and looking to put their money elsewhere. Iran is a war that Trump had hoped to be settled before the summit and in fact delayed the summit by about six weeks believing that it would be finished by now. Yet he came and landed in Beijing and the Strait remains closed. So these two leaders did end up having some conversations about how to resolve that conflict. And President Trump summarized their conversation saying that the Chinese believe the Strait should be opened, believe that the Iranians should not be tolling the Strait and that the Iranians should not have a nuclear weapon. Now we haven't heard yet from the Chinese side if that's how they see it.

Luke Vargas (3:17)

All right, so sort of a lack of deals, Annie, on one hand, then what are the big takeaways from all of this?

Annie Linskey (3:22)

These are the two leaders of the two largest and most powerful countries on the planet. And the kind of overarching purpose of these two days of meetings was to show the world that these two leaders can work together and have a working relationship even as the two countries are at times enmeshed in a rivalry that can get quite testy and tense and heated. And that was achieved. I mean, you did see the Chinese do an ornate welcome for President Trump. You heard President Trump repeatedly refer to Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, as his friend. They had these moments of personal bonding that certainly the US President Trump says is very important to him, and he sees geopolitics very much through personal relationships. So for him, it was quite important to have this time. And that is significant, even though it doesn't neatly fit into a headline of this deal or that deal.

Luke Vargas (4:20)

And they're going to meet again, which I guess maybe those are the meetings we could maybe look to to see some of the concrete things announced that maybe we didn't get this time around.

Annie Linskey (4:27)

Yes, there was an announcement that this rapport between these two leaders will continue with another meeting this time in Washington, DC in mid September. Now, saying that, it's the American side that had touted big economic news coming out of the summit. And so far, most of that has not materialized. The Chinese side, though, also came into the summit very much making a big deal about Taiwan and the status of that self-governing island that is just off the coast of mainland China.