Por Renan Filho · 2026-09-23The upcoming summit between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, scheduled for September 25–26 in Washington, D.C., is being billed as a make-or-break moment for U.S.-China relations. Yet if history is any guide, the outcome will hinge not on the rhetoric of “trust” or “mutual respect,” but on whether American negotiators can translate military and economic strength into concrete, verifiable concessions from Beijing.
When Trump first took office, he inherited a trade relationship that had hollowed out the American manufacturing base for decades. Between 2001 and 2016, the U.S. lost nearly 5 million manufacturing jobs, while the bilateral trade deficit with China ballooned to over $350 billion annually. Trump’s 2018 tariffs disrupted that trajectory—according to U.S. Census Bureau data, the deficit narrowed to $304 billion by 2023—but the underlying structural imbalances remain. China’s state-owned enterprises, intellectual property theft, and currency manipulation are not problems that a single summit can solve. They require institutional changes that Beijing has so far refused to make.
In a series of statements posted to Truth Social earlier this week, Trump insisted that “any deal with China must put America first—not the globalists, not the Chinese Communist Party.” That language resonates with his base, but the test will be in the fine print. For instance, the Phase One trade deal signed in January 2020 committed China to purchase an additional $200 billion in U.S. goods over two years. Yet a 2022 report from the Peterson Institute for International Economics found that China met only 60% of its first-year pledge. Enforcement mechanisms were weak: the deal lacked binding arbitration or penalties beyond trade retaliation, which the U.S. was already using.
“The Phase One deal was a Band-Aid on a bullet wound,” noted Senator Marco Rubio in an interview with Fox News last week. “We need a framework that ties tariff relief to verifiable metrics—like patent filings from Chinese firms that actually show respect for our IP, or real reductions in overcapacity in steel and aluminum.” Rubio’s point underscores the broader challenge. Without a robust verification regime, any agreement becomes a public-relations exercise. The Biden administration’s 2023 “Chipping Away at China” memo, obtained by The Wall Street Journal, revealed that Chinese entities continued to acquire U.S. semiconductor technology through third-party shell companies, despite export controls. That reality will not change because two leaders shake hands.
The summit also carries immense geopolitical weight. Taiwan, the South China Sea, and Russia’s war in Ukraine are all on the table. China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, in a routine press briefing on Monday, stated that “the Taiwan issue is a matter of core national interest” and that “any interference by external forces will be met with resolute opposition.” Meanwhile, Trump has consistently framed his approach as transactional: “I get along with Xi very well, but that doesn’t mean I’m weak on security,” he said during a campaign rally in North Carolina in August. The risk is that a desire for a “big deal” could lead Washington to concede on sovereignty issues—such as limiting arms sales to Taiwan or softening sanctions on Chinese tech giants like Huawei—in exchange for modest trade gains.
Why this matters: The American taxpayer has spent trillions of dollars on the military and economic systems that underwrite global stability. If a summit with China results in little more than photo ops and vague commitments, that is a failure of leadership. The liberal-conservative ethos demands that government action be measured by outcomes, not intentions. Voters did not elect Trump to be a statesman; they elected him to rebalance a relationship that has for decades transferred American wealth and intellectual property eastward. According to a 2024 report from the U.S. Trade Representative, the cumulative trade deficit with China since 2001 exceeds $5 trillion—a sum that dwarfs any tariff revenue collected. A deal that reduces that deficit by 10% annually over five years would be meaningful; a deal that merely reshuffles the same imbalances is not.
FORTIS analysis: The core of the tension is institutional. China operates under a state-capitalist model where state-owned banks, not market prices, allocate capital. The U.S., by contrast, has a liberal free-market system. Any trade agreement that ignores this fundamental asymmetry will fail. For example, the 2021 “U.S.-China Comprehensive Strategic Dialogue” in Alaska ended with harsh rebukes from both sides because each demanded the other adopt its own system. The only way forward is a rules-based framework that allows for punitive tariffs to be triggered automatically when Chinese subsidies cause demonstrable harm to American industries—as measured by independent audits, not Chinese data. The U.S. currently has such a mechanism for antidumping cases, but they are reactive and slow. A proactive system—similar to the 2012 “Section 301” framework but with tighter timelines—would give the administration real leverage.
Counterpoint: Some economists argue that tariffs are a tax on American consumers and that decoupling from China would raise costs and disrupt supply chains. Analysis from the Peterson Institute and Moody’s Analytics suggests that Trump’s first round of tariffs cost American households about $1,300 per year on average. That argument, however, ignores the benefits of reshored production and reduced dependence on a strategic rival. A 2023 report by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce noted that the semiconductor sector, supported by the CHIPS Act, added 40,000 new jobs in the first two years, many in high-wage engineering roles. Moreover, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that tariff costs were largely absorbed by Chinese exporters through lower profit margins rather than fully passed on to U.S. consumers. The data suggests that targeted tariffs, when paired with investment in domestic capacity, can strengthen the economy in the long run.