The meeting is less about reaching a “grand deal” and more about achieving a ceasefire – a trade truce to stabilize expectations and buy time.
By Jianli Yang – Oct 28, 2025
The much-anticipated summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will soon take the stage at the APEC summit in Gyeongju, South Korea, overshadowing all other events. The eyes of the world will turn to this encounter not because of ceremonial diplomacy, but because the relationship between these two powers now defines every contour of the global political and economic order, touching nearly every person’s daily life on earth. To quote a Chinese idiom: “a single hair pulls the whole body.”
The summit will not produce a grand bargain. The United States and China are locked in a deepening trade war and teetering at the edge of a cliff of escalation. Tariffs and counter-tariffs have become the new normal, while each side weaponizes critical resources and technologies. The precariousness is palpable: the U.S. threatens to extend its export controls on advanced semiconductors and AI-related hardware, while China’s response has been to tighten its rare earths export restrictions – a move that rattled not only Washington but also Japan, South Korea, and Europe. Both economies are under pressure at home: inflation and industrial contraction in the U.S., stagnation and unemployment among China’s youth… [Continue Reading]
Source: https://thediplomat.com/2025/10/the-trump-xi-apec-summit-seeking-a-trade-truce/