Washington is preparing for its most consequential diplomatic meeting of the year. On September 24, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping will sit down on American soil for a summit that is expected to cover trade, technology and Taiwan — the same agenda that dominated their May 2026 encounter. What has shifted sharply since then is the urgency around artificial intelligence, which has moved so fast that both governments now treat it as a matter of national security, not just commerce. The most immediate task for both leaders will be renewing the Busan trade pact, hammered out last year in South Korea.

Under that deal, the United States agreed to ease some export controls on advanced technology and to reduce triple-digit tariffs on Chinese goods, while Beijing pledged not to cut off critical minerals and rare earths that American industry depends on. Negotiators expect the new arrangement to look much like the old one, though two proposed joint institutions — a Board of Trade and a Board of Investment — remain poorly defined, and business leaders on both sides are pressing for concrete details. China is also considering bringing its own top executives to mirror the presence of Nvidia's Jensen Huang and Tesla's Elon Musk, who accompanied Trump to Beijing earlier this year. Taiwan will be in the room without being on the formal agenda.

Trump has consistently avoided his predecessor's stronger language on defending the island, preferring Washington's traditional position of strategic ambiguity. Beijing, for its part, is still looking for ways to increase pressure on Taipei that stop well short of military force. Whether any of these conversations produce lasting agreements, or simply buy time until the next summit, is a question neither side has yet answered.