This week’s meeting between the two leaders in Beijing comes at a fraught time with the United States’ ongoing war with Iran and the economic fallout of Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. The meeting was originally scheduled for March 2026, but with the beginning of the Iran war, Trump delayed the visit until this week.

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This is an inopportune time for Trump to visit China, given the other challenges he faces: negotiating with Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz and resolving Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.

The geopolitically sensitive issue of U.S. support for Taiwan is a source of U.S.-China friction, too. The ongoing Iran war only adds one more item to the difficult discussions.

What’s unique about this summit?

In past summits, like President Richard Nixon’s in 1972, there was enormous lead time, preparation and pre-negotiations. Nixon was surrounded by China experts.

This U.S. President has a different approach to negotiation preparation. Plus, Trump’s style of diplomacy is more spontaneous and transactional, instead of relying on a longer-term strategic vision. That means there could be some really surprising things happening — at the last minute, Trump could say something or make a concession he and his advisers never talked about.

Here are three questions experts on the region are keeping in mind during this week’s summit.

1. Will there be anything more than a general call for peace in Iran?

Iran cannot be ignored. China is a close ally of Iran and depends heavily on Iranian oil to fuel its industry. China hasn’t been affected by the oil blockade as much as U.S. allies like South Korea and Japan, but China is Iran’s largest crude oil customer and does feel the economic impact of the shipping crisis in the Persian Gulf.

It’s unlikely that Trump and Xi will negotiate any resolution of the crisis, but Trump, at best, can hope that Xi will make some kind of a statement calling for a quick end to the war and a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

2. Will there be anything more than minor concessions on trade?

China will have the upper hand not because of the Iranian war but because of what was learned in the recent trade war. Still, it remains important to deal with ongoing U.S.-China trade issues and hopefully continue the trade truce. This can happen by making some progress on resolving China’s willingness to provide critical minerals to the U.S. and China’s desire to ensure access to U.S. advanced chips for its robust electronics industry and artificial intelligence (AI) development.

There is some worry that Trump could make more technological concessions that would give China some advantages in the AI race.

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Xi Jinping is confident that he has the advantage because he successfully pushed off Trump’s trade tariffs and can wield the weapon of China’s domination of critical minerals, which are important to U.S. industry and national security.

Trump can only hope for symbolic concessions and, at best, can continue the truce in the trade dispute. It’s unlikely that he gains any more significant, structural Chinese concessions, such as changes in trade rules or more open markets for American products.

In my view, the best Trump can hope for is some small concessions — more orders for Boeing jets and perhaps reopening its market to American soybeans.

The president and his team are still concerned about the large trade deficit. The United States’ soybean market has been cut off from China since the trade war commenced.

The Trump administration wants some deliverables to point toward as a victory. The summit will be considered a success for Trump if he can convince Xi to increase imports from the U.S., especially soybeans, which will help the ailing U.S. farmers who depend on exports.

3. Will there be anything less than continued, strong U.S. support for Taiwan?

The most sensitive issue is Taiwan. China is unhappy with U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and U.S. efforts to enlarge Taiwan’s diplomatic space. While the U.S. has diplomatically supported Taiwan and provided it with military hardware, the United States continues its verbal policy that it does “not support” Taiwan’s independence.

Xi will certainly press Trump to curtail U.S. arms sales and may demand a stronger U.S. declaration of “opposing” Taiwan’s independence in exchange for any trade concessions the U.S. wants from China. Trump has already delayed major arms sales to Taiwan to calm the waters before the summit and has admitted discussing the Taiwan arms sales issue with Xi, which is a violation of historic U.S. assurances to Taiwan. China’s watchers will parse every word uttered by Trump regarding Taiwan while he is in Beijing to suss out even subtle changes in U.S. commitments to Taiwan.

Given Trump’s transactional nature and some negative things the president said about Taiwan recently, some fear Trump may be in the mood to make some concessions on Taiwan in order to get some concessions on trade.

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Emerging from the summit, the best hope is that U.S. support for Taiwan is not questioned and that China comes away confident that the U.S. would very likely respond if China ever attacked Taiwan.

Bottom line

Since Trump and Xi met last, the world order has changed. Trump can no longer wield the weapon of tariffs, and Xi is much more confident in China’s economic power, especially its control of critical minerals.

China’s political role in the world as a dominant leader has also grown, especially in the global south. Both leaders want stability and continuity in U.S.-China relations.

By contrast, Trump probably wants deliverables that strengthen his hand domestically in the short term as he faces a dramatic drop in popularity and the challenges of uncertain midterm elections.