‘Pandas are cute but US needs rare earth magnets’: Trump-Xi meet so far leaves analysts wanting more

• US-China summit showcased friendly optics but delivered limited concrete outcomes on Day 2, extending a trade truce until only January 2027 with no major breakthroughs on key issues.
• Analysts criticised the visit as "diplotainment", highlighting gaps on trade, Taiwan, rare earths, AI cooperation, and Iran, stressing that underlying conflicts remain unresolved.
• Panda diplomacy symbolised goodwill amid tension, and future Trump-Xi meetings at APEC and G-20 offer potential for more substantive progress.

PHILADELPHIA – Sharp strands of US-China tensions were buried neatly beneath the line of sight during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s first state visit in more than a decade.

The bonhomie between the presidents meeting for the second time in four months was one for the record books. Or at least for the cameras that caught a few unguarded moments between them even as major US television networks refused to air any live broadcast of the trip.

President Donald Trump talked of their “truly great friendship” as he hosted Xi on Sept 24, the second day of the visit that began with a ceremonial welcome at the White House. It featured less than two hours of talks behind closed doors and culminated in a glittering state dinner.

Xi responded to Trump’s effusiveness to an unusual degree, noting in his speech that the two leaders had “built personal rapport”.

The Chinese leader, who is rarely seen in public without a detached expression, was caught cracking up as Trump took him on a tour around the White House and showed him the photo of an autopen that has replaced former president Joe Biden’s portrait there. It is a mocking depiction of Trump’s contention that presidential aides, rather than Biden himself, were effectively making key decisions late in his term.

But US observers are mostly failing to see any humour in the lavish spectacle.

With a day to go before the visit draws to a close and no major announcements forthcoming to stabilise the fragile relationship between the two geopolitical rivals with the world’s two largest economies, the disappointment among US-based analysts was unequivocal.

“So far, all show and no substance,” Stephen Roach, a prominent analyst of the US-China economic relationship, told The Straits Times.

“The two-month trade extension was disappointingly short,” said Roach, remarking on the renewal of the tariff-and-trade truce reached when the two leaders met in Busan, South Korea, in October 2025.

Due to lapse on Nov 10, it is being extended to Jan 10, 2027, in what is the only concrete outcome of the trip so far. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the extension was meant to give negotiators time to pursue a broader economic agreement.

For the Chinese, the outcomes were not much better, said Roach, who spent roughly three decades at Morgan Stanley, including as the firm’s chief economist and later as Hong Kong-based chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia.

“Marginally, (it’s) an opportunity to be more explicit on the Taiwan red line,” he said, referring to Xi’s ongoing visit.

Xi urged the US to “adhere to the correct position of opposing Taiwan independence” during the visit. There is no sign that Trump will depart from the longstanding US position that it “does not support Taiwan independence”.

The administration has, however, calmed Beijing’s fears by delaying an arms sales package to Taiwan, a self-ruled island that China sees as a breakaway province awaiting reunification, by force if necessary.

‘Diplotainment’ over real substance

Daniel Russel, who served as the assistant secretary of state in the Obama administration, called the summit “diplotainment”.

“It was a disappointment,” he told ST. “We can be glad that they showed they want to keep the relationship from going over a cliff. But the two presidents are making nice while the two countries remain locked in a bitter competition over trade, tech, Taiwan, defence, rare earths and industrial policy.”

He added: “What bothered me was the imbalance between spectacle and substance: theatrical pageantry, but only about 90 minutes of substantive talks.

“I’ve been calling it ‘diplotainment’.

“Pandas are cute, but what the US needs are rare earth magnets.”

Xi made some headlines with his announcement that two giant pandas, Ping Ping, a male, and Fu Shuang, a female, will arrive at Zoo Atlanta “in a few days”.

It was not a wholly new announcement but welcome, nonetheless. The zoo has been without pandas since 2024, when China recalled four pandas as an earlier agreement ended.

“There is a danger in papering over the real problems,” said Russel, now a distinguished fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “Dialogue is useful; pretending the underlying conflicts have been resolved is not.”

He listed where the gaps were, including doubts about whether China will walk the talk on buying US farm products or loosening its restrictions over the export of rare earths and critical minerals in demand by US manufacturing industries.

Likewise, there is scepticism that US-China dialogue on artificial intelligence safety will be meaningful since both do not want to be constrained in developing their prowess. And there is no sign so far that China will reduce its purchases of Iranian oil or cease its alleged support of Iran’s war effort, the issues central to Trump’s attempt to end the war.

“On trade, the real test is whether tariff cuts, agricultural purchases and Boeing orders actually happen,” said Russel.

“On rare earths, it is whether shipments increase. On Taiwan, watch what happens to the delayed arms package. On Iran, there is zero chance of Xi joining a US maximum-pressure campaign.”

He added: “And on AI, the technology is racing ahead while the two governments are taking six months just to get their dialogue started.

“Pageantry and protocol don’t add up to progress, and summit announcements have not been a very good predictor of performance.”

‘Optics do matter’

Shanghai-based China expert Han Lin saw the pandas as a soft way through hard problems.

“For all the attention on the hard security, technology and trade issues, that China made room for panda diplomacy was a clever strategy,” said Lin, the China managing director at The Asia Group, a Washington-based strategic advisory.

“For Beijing, the message is friendship without requiring major policy concessions. For Washington, it’s a reminder that even amid intense competition, there is still room for visible, people-to-people engagement.”

When the objective is to stabilise a relationship under pressure, the optics do matter, Lin noted.

“Papering over the hard issues isn’t the point; creating enough guard rails to manage them is,” he said.

The structural fault lines on trade, tech, rare earths and Iran will remain, but a confirmation that Trump and Xi will meet again in November for APEC and December for the Group of 20 would make the summit worthwhile, he said.

“We have windows for more thoughtful deliverables,” he told ST.

Strong criticism from senators

Some of the sharpest criticism of the visit came from US senators of both parties.

The Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, Roger Wicker, a Republican, objected to Xi’s visit, saying China was seeking regional dominance and overseeing a military build-up against the US.

“Democratic Senate criticism is no surprise, but Republican criticism is a reminder of how much daylight remains between Trump and both his own administration and Congress on China,” said Lin.

“Trump is effectively the little Dutch boy plugging the dyke, trying to hold back an avalanche of anti-China measures from Congress. Beijing knows it. Better to treat Trump well than deal with his hawkish administration and Congress,” he noted.

There were also voices in Beijing arguing that Xi should stay away in view of the proximity to US congressional elections on Nov 3, Lin said.

“The risk was simply too high, including the possibility of putting a midterm-election bull’s eye on China,” he added.

But since Trump visited China earlier in 2026, reciprocity made Xi’s attendance almost unavoidable, Lin said.

The changing geopolitical dynamics were also operative. Before his Washington visit, Xi attended two major non-Western, Global South diplomatic gatherings: the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and the BRICS summit in New Delhi.

Xi’s stops carried a subtle message, said Lin.

“Washington still matters, but it is no longer the centre of gravity of China’s diplomacy,” he explained.