Xi Jinping is expected to visit Washington on Sept. 24 for a summit with Donald Trump, but analysts say expectations are low. The talks come as the U.S. pushes secondary sanctions targeting Iran's "enablers," a category that could touch China, Tehran's top trading partner.
Xi Jinping is set to travel to Washington on Sept. 24 to meet Donald Trump, though China has not officially confirmed the visit. Analysts told CNBC they expect the summit to manage tensions rather than resolve them.
According to CNBC: "The relationship increasingly produces transactions without trust and stability without settlement," Craig Singleton, senior director for China at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the outlet. He called it a low-expectations summit focused on managing the stalemate rather than resolving it.
The meeting follows a similar dynamic to the leaders' May summit in Beijing, where Trump and corporate executives were feted but left without concrete business deals or breakthroughs on Iran or Taiwan. This time, both sides appear focused on avoiding steps that would upend their current trade truce.
The Iran sanctions question
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has unveiled a plan to target Iran's "enablers" with secondary sanctions, without naming China directly. China is Iran's largest trading partner, so the plan could still carry consequences for Beijing.
China pushed back on the sanctions plan, dubbed "Operation Economic Outcast," shortly after Bessent announced it on Aug. 24. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said China has made clear on many occasions its firm opposition to unilateral sanctions that it says have no basis in international law or UN Security Council authorization.
Scholars say Washington faces competing pressures in how hard it pushes China on Iran. Targeting Chinese banks or institutions could invite retaliation that threatens the two countries' trade detente and U.S. access to China's critical minerals supply. Scott Kennedy, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the U.S. is caught between multiple contradictions in its China and Iran policies that are not easily resolved.
Trade friction and the summit agenda
This week's G20 finance ministers' summit in North Carolina showed the gap between the two countries. China was the only member to dissent from a joint statement urging countries with large external surpluses to stop distorting trade, and it also objected to language about the Iran war.
Bessent confirmed that AI will be on the agenda when Trump and Xi meet. MS NOW reported, citing four sources familiar with the matter, that the White House is planning a formal state dinner for Xi, a treatment MS NOW said has so far gone only to Britain's King Charles III during Trump's second term.
Matthew Kroenig, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, said Trump's leader-to-leader dealmaking style is also tempering expectations for the summit. Any announcements to emerge, he said, would likely be broad, leaving the details for the two governments to work out afterward.
Source: CNBC
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