Few trips to China by a United States president have been accompanied by as much expectation and uncertainty as Donald Trump’s upcoming visit to Beijing, on 14-15 May. Trump needs a deal with China he can sell as a victory at home, especially before the November 2026 US midterm elections, but will arrive in Beijing in an extraordinarily weak negotiating position for a president who has made strength his trademark. He is mired in the Iran conflict, in which the US’s European allies are not providing support, while the US domestic economy suffers from the tariffs he himself imposed, and which the Supreme Court has blocked.
President Xi Jinping, meanwhile, has neither elections nor a free press to complicate matters. The international context also works in Beijing’s favour. In response to Trump’s foreign policy adventures, China has opted for a calculated containment strategy based on tough rhetoric and public rejection of US hegemony. However, it has not so far – at least overtly – crossed the red lines Washington has drawn, particularly on arms supplies to Iran.
Although the Beijing summit has faced moments of uncertainty – a one-month delay announced by Trump after the attacked Iran – all indications show that the Chinese government plans to use it primarily to address what it considers an internal, inalienable and indisputable matter: reunification with the island of Taiwan.
In particular, Xi wants to stop a huge US arms sale to Taiwan. In December 2025, Washington announced its largest ever arms sale to the island: an $11 billion package of technologically sophisticated weaponry. The deal was notified to Congress but its implementation remains shrouded in uncertainty. In February 2026, Trump acknowledged he had consulted with Xi about arms sales to Taiwan and had decided to wait until after the summit to proceed. Doubts about how much of the arsenal will ultimately reach the island have multiplied since then.
The future of Taiwan is not an abstract problem. The Taiwan Strait is the artery through which flows the most critical resource of the artificial intelligence revolution. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) manufactures about 90% of the world’s advanced semiconductors. These power AI data centres, next-generation weapons systems and the digital infrastructure of Western democracies. A crisis in the strait, or even a credible threat, would have a comparable or even greater impact on the global economy than the current virtual closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump will therefore arrive in Beijing with a limited negotiating hand. Or, more precisely, he will arrive having already made some concessions. What he negotiates with Xi Jinping at the summit will determine not only the future of Taiwan, but also the global technological and military balance of power, potentially with long-lasting effect.