Trump aims to defy gravity with Beijing friendship summit

(Zachary Basu – Axios) President Trump’s summit with Xi Jinping was staged as a reunion between old friends, concluding Friday with a private tour of Zhongnanhai, the Chinese Communist Party’s secretive leadership compound. Strolling the gardens, Trump declared the blooms around him “the most beautiful roses anyone has ever seen.” Xi promised to send him seeds. The warm public choreography of the past two days has masked a stubborn reality: nearly every force shaping U.S.-China relations is pulling them apart. Trump spent the trip pitching closer ties with China after a decade of decoupling that he, more than any other American president, helped set in motion. As Trump and Xi entered a working lunch Friday, the summit had already produced a package of modest deliverables, building on the trade truce the two leaders struck last fall. Trump declared “we’ve made some fantastic trade deals” at Friday’s closing meeting at Zhongnanhai, and told Fox News earlier that China had committed to buying 200 Boeing jets. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the U.S. expects China to commit to at least $10 billion in annual U.S. agricultural purchases over the next three years, on top of existing soybean commitments. The two sides are also negotiating a joint “Board of Trade” covering about $30 billion in non-sensitive goods. Trump’s public characterizations of Xi’s Iran posture left more questions than answers. Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that Xi pledged China would not supply Iran with military equipment. “But at the same time,” Trump added, “they buy a lot of their oil there, and they’d like to keep doing that.”. At Zhongnanhai on Friday, Trump said he and Xi had discussed Iran. “We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon,” he said. “We want the straits open.”. China hawks in Trump’s administration worked in the days and weeks leading up to the summit to undercut the case for rapprochement. The State Department sanctioned three Chinese firms for providing satellite imagery that helped Iran strike U.S. forces in the Middle East. The Treasury Department sanctioned multiple Chinese “teapot” refineries for buying billions of dollars of Iranian oil. Beijing responded by ordering companies not to comply with U.S. sanctions. A White House memo written by Trump science adviser Michael Kratsios accused Chinese entities of “industrial-scale” campaigns to steal frontier AI from American companies. Federal prosecutors unsealed charges against the mayor of Arcadia, Calif., for acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese government — 48 hours before Trump landed in Beijing. – Trump aims to defy gravity with Beijing friendship summit