Trump tries to defy gravity with Beijing friendship summit

President Trump's summit with Xi Jinping was staged as a reunion between old friends, concluding Friday with a private tour of Zhongnanhai, the Chinese Communist Party's leadership compound.

• Strolling the gardens, Trump declared the blooms around him "the most beautiful roses anyone has ever seen." Xi promised to send him seeds.

Why it matters: The warm public choreography of the past two days conceals a harsher reality: nearly every force shaping U.S.-China relations is pulling them apart.

• Trump spent the trip pitching closer ties with China after a decade of decoupling that he, more than any other American president, helped set in motion.

Driving the news: As Trump and Xi entered a working lunch Friday, the summit had already produced a package of modest deliverables, building on the trade truce the two leaders struck last fall.

• Trump declared "we've made some fantastic trade deals" at Friday's closing meeting at Zhongnanhai, and told Fox News earlier that China had committed to buying 200 Boeing jets.
• U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the U.S. expects China to commit to at least $10 billion in annual U.S. agricultural purchases over the next three years, on top of existing soybean commitments.
• The two sides are also negotiating a joint "Board of Trade" covering about $30 billion in non-sensitive goods.

What they're saying: Trump's public characterizations of Xi's Iran posture left more questions than answers.

• Trump told Fox News' Sean Hannity that Xi pledged China would not supply Iran with military equipment. "But at the same time," Trump added, "they buy a lot of their oil there, and they'd like to keep doing that."
• At Zhongnanhai on Friday, Trump said he and Xi had discussed Iran. "We don't want them to have a nuclear weapon," he said. "We want the straits open."

Zoom in: China hawks in Trump's administration worked in the days and weeks leading up to the summit to undercut the case for rapprochement.

• The State Department sanctioned three Chinese firms for providing satellite imagery that helped Iran strike U.S. forces in the Middle East.
• The Treasury Department sanctioned multiple Chinese "teapot" refineries for buying billions of dollars of Iranian oil. Beijing responded by ordering companies not to comply with U.S. sanctions.
• A White House memo written by Trump science adviser Michael Kratsios accused Chinese entities of "industrial-scale" campaigns to steal frontier AI from American companies.
• Federal prosecutors unsealed charges against the mayor of Arcadia, Calif., for acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese government — 48 hours before Trump landed in Beijing.

The intrigue: Leaks from inside the government paint an even more hostile picture of the U.S.-China rivalry.

• A U.S. intelligence assessment reported by the Washington Post found that China is exploiting the Iran war to gain ground over the U.S. diplomatically, militarily and economically.
• The New York Times reported Wednesday that Chinese companies are negotiating clandestine arms sales to Iran, routing weapons through third countries — including in Africa — to hide their origins.
• Trump told Fox News's Sean Hannity that Xi assured him China would not supply Iran with military equipment. "But at the same time," he added, "they buy a lot of their oil there, and they'd like to keep doing that."

The other side: Xi — while warning Trump that mishandling Taiwan could provoke "an extremely dangerous situation" — played his own part in the summit's friendly choreography.

• Beijing rolled out the red carpet for Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who remains sanctioned for his criticism of China's human rights abuses as a U.S. senator.
• At Thursday's state banquet, Xi told Trump that China's "great rejuvenation" — the Communist Party's signature political slogan — and "Make America Great Again" could go "hand in hand."

Between the lines: Both leaders have clear incentives to maintain the truce, for now at least.

• Trump doesn't need any more election-year economic shocks, particularly after Xi's crippling ban on rare earth mineral exports during last year's trade war.
• And Xi likely believes "strategic stability" with the U.S. will help China push ahead with its own priorities, from military modernization to high-tech dominance.
• As the leaders play nice, their governments are working furiously in the background to reduce their dependence on one another.

The big picture: Trump's push for closer economic ties is at odds with with a U.S. political climate that has spent the last several years treating Chinese capital as radioactive.

• Amid growing security concerns, Chinese investment in the U.S. has collapsed from roughly $45 billion in 2016 to less than $3 billion last year, according to Rhodium Group.
• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the two sides are discussing a framework for steering Chinese investment into non-sensitive sectors — a sign of how deeply national security fears have constrained economic ties.

The bottom line: Two aging nationalist leaders, presiding over the world's most dangerous rivalry, spent the week performing a friendship neither of their governments seems willing to sustain.