Most likely, Taiwan will face pressure to move a certain amount of its semiconductor business elsewhere, but the “magic number” that would make that sustainable in the face of a Chinese military threat can’t be predicted yet, Schiffer said.
Don’t expect a big win for Trump
Experts agree that the US and China will likely extend the temporary trade truce established during Trump’s last meeting with Xi, as both sides would benefit from that stability. But it remains unclear how much Trump might be willing to trade as China uses its leverage to push for its biggest asks. Those will likely include the shift on the US position on Taiwan, easing of export restrictions to give China access to more high-end tech, and possibly the removal of Chinese firms from US sanctions lists.
Notably, Trump no longer has emergency tariffs or even his global tariffs to intimidate China, so Xi may get more out of the bargain than Trump likes.
However, China doesn’t even need to get any of its biggest asks to emerge as winners from the summit, Kennedy said. “As long as there’s not a blow up in the meeting and President Trump doesn’t go away and look to re-escalate, China basically comes out stronger,” Kennedy said.
The best outcome for Trump might be coming out of Beijing with “some pomp and pageantry, but nothing of substance that harms the United States or harms our allies and partners,” Schiffer told Ars.
“This may be sort of dialing expectations down, but I would consider that a win at this point,” Schiffer said.
At the very least, Trump needs to secure symbolic wins coming out of Beijing, experts agreed, if he wants Republicans to have something to campaign on ahead of the midterm elections.
But if he’s really invested in US dominance in AI, he can’t actually afford to be short-sighted at the summit, especially after making “massive” cuts to US science funding and research, which drove China to start recruiting top US scientists last year, Kennedy suggested.
“That’s really where the competition is going to be won or lost,” Kennedy said.