Trump-Xi meeting nears with high stakes and hopes, but few details

A high-stakes meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping could yield a breakthrough in the quarrelsome trade relationship between the two economic superpowers.

But while both the Trump administration and Beijing are projecting optimism ahead of the sit-down, specifics about the summit remain unclear — and some experts are skeptical of the White House’s confidence.

Phil Luck, director of the economics program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he was expecting an outcome that is “relatively minor, relatively vague” and “not awe inspiring.”

“I think, largely speaking, both us and the Chinese have started a lot of mini fires over the last few months, and we’re going to put a few of those out, basically,” he told CNBC.

The meeting — the two leaders’ first face-to-face since Trump retook the White House and began his trade war with China — is set to commence late Wednesday ET, Thursday morning local time in Busan, South Korea.

The one-on-one is the last item on Trump’s agenda before he returns to Washington, D.C., capping a five-day, three-country swing through Asia.

“Very much looking forward to my meeting with President Xi of China,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post less than four hours before the bilateral meeting was set to begin.

En route to South Korea, Trump said he expects that his administration will lower certain tariffs on Chinese imports that are related to the alleged trafficking of fentanyl into the U.S.

“I expect to be lowering that because I believe that they’re going to help us with the fentanyl situation,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “They’re going to be doing what they can do.”

But when asked what China is doing to justify removing fentanyl tariffs, Trump provided no details.

“Well, I think they’re going to do things that, you know, they have an industry that has to do with drugs. The fentanyl has other reasons for being, and we have to get rid of it. We have to stop it,” he said.

And when a reporter pressed for clarity on whether China would be assisting U.S. law enforcement on fentanyl — and if so, how — Trump offered little.

“China is going to be working with me,” he said, “And we’re going to do something, I believe, I mean, look, we have to have the meeting, our meeting tomorrow. That’s a big meeting, and fentanyl will be one of the things that we’re discussing.”

He added, “Importantly, we’ll be discussing the farmers, we’ll be discussing a lot of things.”

Trump did not elaborate on how farmers would factor into the discussions.

China has been the top buyer of U.S. soybeans, but it halted all purchases of the staple crop for months amid the tit-for-tat tariff war, costing American farmers billions of dollars in lost revenue.

Ahead of the Trump-Xi meeting, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent hinted that the soybean drought would soon come to an end.

“I believe when the announcement of the deal with China is made public, that our soybean farmers will feel very good about what’s going on both for this season and the coming seasons for several years,” Bessent said on Sunday.

This week, China-owned COFCO bought three U.S. soybean cargoes for December and January shipment, equating to about 180,000 metric tons of product. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins hailed the purchase as a major step forward and the result of Trump’s “strong dealmaking.”

But “that’s peanuts” compared to what China would normally be buying in just a single week during the prime autumn harvest season, CSIS’ Luck told CNBC.

The White House, asked for additional information on what Trump plans to discuss with Xi, referred CNBC to the president’s comments on Air Force One.

Trump, in those remarks, also suggested that he was unlikely to bring up the issue of Taiwan with Xi, saying, “I don’t know that we’ll even speak about” the self-governing island.

“I’m not sure. I mean, he may want to ask about it. There’s not that much to ask about,” Trump said.

The meeting comes just as a recent flare-up in U.S.-China trade relations has appeared to calm down.

Trump in mid-October had threatened to hike tariffs on Chinese goods by 100%, starting Nov. 1, over Beijing’s announcement of new export restrictions on rare earth minerals. Days later, Trump threatened to have the U.S. stop buying Chinese cooking oil in retaliation for China freezing its soybean purchases.

But after talks between top trade negotiators for the two countries, Bessent said Sunday that the U.S. and China had struck the “framework” of a trade agreement that would prevent the 100% U.S. tariff from taking effect.

“I’m also anticipating that we will get some kind of a deferral on the rare earth export controls that the Chinese had discussed,” Bessent said.

Luck said he believed that decreasing some tariffs would be one of the “simplest” things that Xi and Trump could announce after their meeting. “We threatened these really high tariffs, but almost immediately it was pretty clear that we didn’t want to put them on,” he said.

Luck said he also expected the meeting would yield at least some discussion of “walking back some export controls that we have put on, and some that they have.”

Trump’s one-on-one with Xi will come after friendly meetings with the leaders of Japan, South Korea and others.

Starting his Asia trip in Kuala Lumpur, Trump signed so-called reciprocal trade agreements with Malaysia and the U.S. announced “frameworks” for trade talks with Thailand and Vietnam.

In Japan, Trump met with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and signed agreements on rare earths and nuclear power.

Trump also claimed that Japanese auto giant Toyota had committed to spend $10 billion building U.S. plants — but a Toyota executive reportedly said that that specific new investment had not been announced.