{"id":12740,"date":"2026-05-11T13:11:01","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T13:11:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2026\/05\/11\/trump-says-his-trip-to-china-will-be-a-wild-one-why-hes-going-now-and-what-to-expect-yahoo\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T13:11:01","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T13:11:01","slug":"trump-says-his-trip-to-china-will-be-a-wild-one-why-hes-going-now-and-what-to-expect-yahoo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2026\/05\/11\/trump-says-his-trip-to-china-will-be-a-wild-one-why-hes-going-now-and-what-to-expect-yahoo\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says his trip to China will be ‘a wild one.’ Why he’s going now \u2014 and what to expect. – Yahoo"},"content":{"rendered":"
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President Trump is set to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing on May 14 and 15 for talks about trade, Taiwan and China’s relationship with Iran as the war in the Middle East enters its third month.<\/p>\n

It will be Trump\u2019s second trip to China as president \u2014 and the first for any U.S. president since his initial visit in 2017.<\/p>\n

Trump previewed the summit while speaking to other world leaders in February, saying it\u2019s \u201cgoing to be a wild one<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018But we have to put on the biggest display you’ve ever had in the history of China.\u2019 You know, last time I went to China, President Xi, he treated me so well, he gave me a display,\u201d he continued, before marveling at the military spectacle that greeted him in 2017.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never saw so many soldiers all the same height, exactly the same height, within a quarter of an inch,\u201d the president recalled. \u201cI said, \u2018If they put their helmets down, you could have played pool on the top of their heads.\u2019 And it was pretty amazing, but I said, \u2018You’ve got to top it.\u2019 He said, \u2018I’ll top it; we’re going to top it.\u2019<\/p>\n

But aside from pageantry and pomp, why is Trump returning to Beijing now? Here\u2019s what to expect \u2014 and what\u2019s at stake.<\/p>\n

Why now?<\/h2>\n

Trump was originally scheduled to visit Beijing from March 31 to April 2. But he decided to hit pause shortly after the start of the Iran war. Citing a source briefed on the summit, Reuters<\/a> reported at the time that \u201cthe image of Trump on a lavish state visit was increasingly seen at odds with a struggling U.S. economy and the return of American service members killed in the Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n

Months later, the war continues, yet the administration has ruled out any further delays. Experts see that as a signal of just how important China is to Trump \u2014 even as they question whether the U.S. currently has the leverage it needs to negotiate on a host of tense, tough issues: Taiwan, tariffs, computer chips, fentanyl, rare earths and agriculture.<\/p>\n

Iran is \u201ca huge distraction,\u201d Yun Sun, director of the Stimson Center\u2019s China program, recently told the Washington Post<\/a>. \u201cThe original date had to be postponed because Trump couldn\u2019t handle two things at the same time, so the war obviously has already had an impact. But now, the question is, is the war going to critically affect the substance of the trip?\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s on the agenda?<\/h2>\n

Trump wants to return to Washington, D.C., with something he can tout as a foreign-policy win. His top goal is to reduce the U.S. trade deficit with China. To that end, \u201cU.S. and Chinese officials have been working to broker a deal that experts say is likely to include Chinese agricultural purchases, investment agreements, a consensus statement on AI guardrails and orders of U.S. commercial aircraft,\u201d according to the Post.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Chinese analysts told the paper that Beijing wants to \u201cextend [the current] trade truce, ease sanctions and technology restrictions, and potentially secure assurances the United States will pull back on arms sales to Taiwan.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also been talk of a grander bargain, with Trump and Xi reportedly<\/a> considering a deal that would let China invest $1 trillion in the U.S., largely to build factories on American soil.<\/p>\n

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Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping greet each other as they arrive for talks at in Busan, South Korea on October 30, 2025.<\/p>\n

(ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS via Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIf they want to come in and build the plant and hire you and hire your friends and your neighbors, that\u2019s great,\u201d Trump told the Detroit Economic Club<\/a> this past January, referring to Chinese automakers. \u201cI love that. Let China come in.\u201d<\/p>\n

But a massive investment deal seems unlikely right now, experts say<\/a>, in part because Iran has weakened Trump\u2019s position. Yue Gang, a retired Chinese colonel, told the New York Times<\/a> that Trump originally \u201cintended to visit China with the air of a swift victor.\u201d But the war, he argued, \u201chas significantly diminished the U.S. military\u2019s ability to project its combat power,\u201d leaving Trump \u201cunable to project the same arrogance\u201d \u2014 or force any major concessions in return.<\/p>\n

In contrast, Beijing has weathered the ongoing energy crisis better than expected and does not seem eager to help end the fighting in Iran. \u201cThe chance of anything of substance emerging from these talks is little more than zero,\u201d Allen Carlson, a China expert at Cornell University, told Time magazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Where do U.S.-China relations stand?<\/h2>\n

That isn\u2019t to say Trump\u2019s visit will be pointless. \u201cGiven how rocky and fluctuant the U.S.-China relationship has been for the past decade since Trump\u2019s first term, some real (and not ephemeral) stabilization would be welcomed,\u201d David Shambaugh, director of the China Policy Program at George Washington University, recently explained<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trump rose to political prominence \u2014 and first ascended to the Oval Office \u2014 as a China hawk who insisted that Beijing was ripping off the U.S. on trade. He spent much of his first term slapping new tariffs on Chinese imports, and his Democratic successor, Joe Biden, largely stayed the course, becoming the first U.S. president in decades not to visit China.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s second term began in a similar vein, with massive \u201cLiberation Day\u201d tariffs against Beijing. But ever since Trump and Xi struck a \u201ctrade truce\u201d at their October summit in South Korea, Trump has seemed more determined to avoid antagonizing his Chinese counterpart. He\u2019s argued in favor of Chinese student visas, pushed to allow China access to advanced AI chips, withheld arms packages for Taiwan, avoided the subject of human rights in China, forbid his cabinet members from criticizing the communist regime and repeatedly touted his \u201cexcellent relationship\u201d with his \u201cgood friend\u201d Xi.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Xi will give me a big, fat, hug when I get there in a few weeks,\u201d Trump recently<\/a> predicted on social media.<\/p>\n

Whether that happens or not \u2014 and whether Trump gets the military parade and mass rally he seems to want \u2014 remains to be seen. Same goes for the \u201cgrand bargain\u201d the U.S. president appears to be angling for. \u201cTrump sees the problem with China as simply a bad deal,\u201d conservative economist Oren Cass recently argued in the Times<\/a>. \u201cAnd what\u2019s the remedy for a bad deal? Why, a better deal, of course.\u201d<\/p>\n

Either way, presidential engagement is \u201ccurrently the only guardrail in U.S.-China relations,\u201d according to retired U.S. diplomat Susan Thornton.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor Americans, the most significant result from Trump\u2019s upcoming visit to Beijing will be that it happened,\u201d Thornton recently wrote<\/a>. \u201cThese meetings are our best hope for preventing miscalculation and should be welcomed as such. Ongoing estrangement is too dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Trump is set to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing on May 14 and 15 for talks about trade, Taiwan and China’s relationship with Iran as the war in the Middle East enters its third month. It will be Trump\u2019s second trip to China as president \u2014 and the first for any U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}