WASHINGTON – State visits are typically reserved for close partners, yet President Donald Trump is welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping to Washington this week while the rivalry between the world’s two biggest economies grows sharper. The contest is especially intense in technology, with artificial intelligence emerging as a central front.
The two leaders are not expected to reach a sweeping agreement. Instead, their third meeting since Trump returned to the White House is aimed largely at preventing already fragile U.S.-China relations from deteriorating further. Washington and Beijing remain locked in competition over AI, trade and global influence, while each seeks leverage in flashpoints including Iran and Taiwan.
“The fact that they are meeting, and there’s dialogue occurring and building that relationship, is probably as important as outcomes from the meeting,” said Sen. Steve Daines, a Montana Republican who advises Trump on China and recently visited the country to help prepare for the summit.
Cui Tiankai, China’s former ambassador to the United States, acknowledged at a recent Beijing forum that the two nations face “always problems, sometimes very big problems.” Still, he said, “we’ll make our best efforts to maintain overall stability.”
Trump and Xi have stepped back from punishing tariffs, but the strategic rivalry remains fierce
Xi’s trip to Washington, beginning Wednesday, will be his first in a decade. The meeting follows a retreat from last year’s damaging trade confrontation, when the United States and China imposed massive tariffs on each other, raising fears for the global economy. Beijing also restricted access to its dominant supplies of critical minerals used in everything from electric vehicles to fighter aircraft.
For Washington, the challenge extends beyond correcting trade imbalances. The United States is also determined to preserve its technological edge as a matter of national security and international leadership. China, meanwhile, has spent years building formidable economic, technological and military strength in an effort to narrow the gap and secure a larger role in the global order.
The stability both governments are pursuing is driven by rivalry rather than trust, said Evan Medeiros, a senior adviser at The Asia Group consultancy. “This is basically two geopolitical strongmen circling each other on the playground, trying to determine what their next move may be.”
The relationship may be settling into a “new normal” defined by “overall stability,” even as both countries blacklist companies and limit the exchange of advanced technologies, said Da Wei, director of the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
The priority now, he said, is for Trump and Xi to secure agreements that can be implemented by their respective governments. “We need to move fast,” Da said.
The global AI competition could make technology cooperation even more difficult
Artificial intelligence has become one of the defining battlegrounds in the U.S.-China rivalry. Neither side appears willing to slow its push, despite warnings from technology executives that uncontrolled AI could pose serious risks to humanity. Trump has repeatedly summarized the stakes by saying, “Whoever wins AI wins.”
In a social media post Monday, Trump said the United States remains ahead of China and argued that he would “not going to stifle Growth, of something that will be bigger than the Industrial Revolution, or the Internet, itself.”
China is equally determined to remain competitive. In an unusually direct essay, Chen Yixin, head of China’s Ministry of State Security, warned that AI could threaten Communist Party control if foreign or hostile powers gain superior capabilities.
The United States has already limited China’s access to its most advanced AI chips. American officials have also accused Chinese developers of using U.S. AI models on an industrial scale to replicate and extract their capabilities.
Beijing counters that the technique, known as distillation, is common across the industry, including among U.S. companies. Chinese officials have also accused Washington of attempting to establish a monopoly over artificial intelligence.
China is also angered by U.S. efforts to assemble an AI partnership that leaves Beijing out. In response, it is trying to shape international rules for the technology by courting developing countries.
Even amid that broader confrontation, Washington and Beijing are exploring a limited avenue for cooperation on AI.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday, after talks with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York, that the United States had proposed a new “notification mechanism” for AI-related incidents that could have national security consequences.
“We think that just like any cross-border activity, that moving from opaque to more transparency between the No. 1 and the No. 2 AI powers in the world is very important,” Bessent said.
US and China have turned to targeted ways to compete instead of high tariffs
While the U.S. and China have refrained from taking broad, punitive actions that would break their trade truce, they still are blacklisting individual companies and banning specific products.
“What we’ve seen is kind of testing and probing by both sides to understand what can be done competitively, while still keeping that leader-level rapprochement on track,” said Mira Rapp-Hooper, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Asia Policy Studies.
The U.S. has recently targeted Chinese telecommunications and surveillance equipment, companies accused of using forced labor in the ethnic region of Xinjiang, as well as China’s advanced robots and drones. The Pentagon also has barred Alibaba, BYD, Baidu and other major Chinese businesses from receiving U.S. defense contracts.
Beijing responded with export controls on drones and related technologies as well as blacklisting six U.S. companies over their support for the punitive measures tied to Xinjiang.
Iran, Taiwan and tariffs are persistent issues
After the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s tariffs on trade partners this year, the administration has been trying to impose them in other ways.
The White House in July rolled out a 12.5% tariff on imports from 60 trading partners, including China, ostensibly for failing to do enough to prevent the import of goods produced by forced labor. The U.S. is planning an additional 7.5% tariff on China, accusing it of producing far more goods than it can reasonably consume.
Analysts say the tariff levels are now acceptable to both sides, but any significant uptick could rekindle tensions.
The Trump administration, however, has launched a campaign to isolate Iran from its remaining economic partners, but Beijing has insisted on its right to trade with Tehran.
So far, the Trump administration has done little to punish China, partly to avoid jeopardizing the leaders summit. But Washington also is losing leverage because China — Iran’s biggest oil buyer and its largest trading partner — has been building up a way to make payments outside the U.S.-led financial system, said Alicia Garcia Herrero, an Asia-Pacific economist at the French investment bank Natixis.
Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing claims as its own territory, also remains one of the thorniest issues in U.S.-China relations. Trump paused a large weapons package to Taiwan following his May trip to Beijing, but the U.S. is obligated by a domestic law to provide it with sufficient hardware and technology for self-defense.
Analysts say Xi will most likely press Trump to further delay arms sales to sow doubts in Taiwan about Washington’s commitment.
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Castillo reported from Beijing.
