When Air Force One's stairs met the tarmac, Donald Trump was already waiting — a rare personal gesture that underscored just how much Washington wanted this meeting to go smoothly. The fanfare continued with a state banquet and a military flyover. Yet behind the ceremony, analysts were quick to caution that spectacle should not be mistaken for substance. The summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping was designed, above all, to keep a fragile peace intact.

The two powers have been entangled in an escalating trade dispute since Trump's first term, when the United States began imposing levies on Chinese industrial imports. Beijing responded with tariffs on American agricultural exports — soya beans, pork — and, later, restrictions on electric vehicles. Subsequent administrations in Washington added further layers, including curbs on the export of advanced semiconductors. When Trump returned to office, the confrontation intensified sharply: at one point, threatened US tariffs reached 200 percent, while China throttled exports of critical minerals essential to everything from consumer electronics to renewable-energy infrastructure.

Both sides eventually stepped back. Today, US tariffs on Chinese goods average 36.5 percent; China's on American exports average 31 percent — still among the highest between any two major trading partners in the world. What brought the two leaders to the table was less ambition than necessity.

After their meeting on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Busan, South Korea, China resumed shipments of those critical minerals.