Three Ts will dominate Trump-Xi summit – but expect little movement on trade, less on Taiwan and who knows on tech

Filed 42m ago · Via The Conversation · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Waltz of Treachery

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Nan Ning Huang Sokaz 12 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Presidents Trump and Xi convene another summit centered on trade, technology, and Taiwan, with the AI question newly urgent given the pace of developments since their last meeting in May 2026.

On trade, both sides are expected to renew last year's Busan arrangement largely as is, alongside vague plans for a Board of Trade and a still-undefined Board of Investment. Taiwan remains unresolved by design, with Trump maintaining strategic ambiguity while Beijing continues building naval capacity and banking on shifts in Taiwan's 2028 election.

The most notable development is a mooted US-China hotline to flag AI-related national security risks, floated just days before the summit. Both governments have separate reasons to discuss AI restraint — public anxiety in the US, and Communist Party aversion to anything 'out of control' in China — but no binding agreement is expected from either side.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Two big countries sitting down to talk about the same three letters for the third summit running tells you something about how fast anything actually moves. A hotline for AI risks sounds impressive until you remember it is just a phone that might ring someday. Call this progress if you like, but it is the kind of progress where everyone agrees to keep meeting about it next year too.

Source: Read the original at The Conversation → Scored: Waltz of Treachery · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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