Trump urges China to 'open up' but analysts see little hope for trade breakthrough

Ahead of his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, US President Donald Trump sought to set high expectations, declaring he would press Xi to “open up” China’s economy. Trump also announced a delegation of top executives including Elon Musk (Tesla), Tim Cook (Apple) and Jensen Huang (Nvidia) would accompany him.

However, as the two leaders wrapped up two days of meetings on Friday (April 18), expectations among observers for summit outcomes remained modest. The two sides are expected to extend the one-year trade truce reached in South Korea last October, but analysts say this represents stabilization, not a recovery, in relations between the world’s two largest economies.

“It’s important to have a clear-eyed view of the current state of relations,” Claire E. Reade, a senior counsel at Arnold & Porter who worked on China at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), told Al Jazeera. “China does not trust the US and wants to defeat the US in the long-term global competition. That limits what can be achieved.”

Although Trump and Xi have not yet publicly detailed any final trade deal, the US side has mentioned several business deals under negotiation. In a Fox News interview aired Thursday (April 17), Trump said China would invest “hundreds of billions of dollars” in companies run by the CEOs in his delegation, but provided no specifics.

Trump administration officials also said China is ready to increase purchases of US agricultural and energy products, order a large number of Boeing aircraft, and establish an “Investment Council” to manage bilateral investment.

“A genuine ‘opening’ of the Chinese market could focus first on sectors where economic complementarity is most obvious,” said Taiyi Sun, associate professor of political science at Christopher Newport University in Virginia. “Agricultural goods like soybeans and beef, as well as high value-added manufactured products like Boeing aircraft, are natural areas for expansion because they align with China’s current needs and US export strengths.”

Sun said gradual opening for US companies in areas like financial services is also possible, but “those areas are more politically and institutionally sensitive within China, so progress will be incremental rather than immediate.”

Gabriel Wildau, senior vice president at global business consultancy Teneo, said both sides will seek to address supply chain vulnerabilities exposed by the trade war. “The Iran war could increase US vulnerability to rare earth export controls, given the need to rebuild depleted ammunition stockpiles,” Wildau said. “Washington will be ready to reduce tariffs—or at least ensure no new tariffs are imposed—in exchange for Beijing’s commitment to maintain rare earth exports.”

Although Trump and Xi agreed to remove some trade barriers at the summit in South Korea, US-China trade remains severely restricted after a decade of back-and-forth economic attacks. According to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the average US tariff on Chinese goods is 47.5% after the Korea summit, up from 3.1% before Trump’s first term. China applies an average tariff of 31.9% on US goods, up from 8.4% in 2018. Two-way trade reached about $415 billion in 2025, sharply down from a peak of $690 billion in 2022.

Carsten Holz, a China economics expert at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said China has less incentive to make concessions to the US than before as domestic industries rise. “In many industrial sectors, Chinese companies hold a leading or controlling position,” Holz said. “Thus, the Chinese economy has little to gain from further opening to the US and may only offer symbolic gestures.”

Deborah Elms, head of trade policy at the Hinrich Foundation in Singapore, echoed the view on the limits of US leverage. “Basically, Trump expects China to buy more goods from the US and allow US companies to operate more freely in China,” Elms said. “What is he offering? Very little, largely because Trump views the bilateral relationship as one where the US is fair and China is not.”

Reade, the former USTR official, asserted Xi will not agree to any measures that “harm China’s interests.” “Instead, China may offer the US inexpensive ‘gifts’—for example, taking short-term actions to remove trade barriers it imposed on beef trade. They could buy US goods they need,” Reade said. “If they allow purchases of US tech products, it’s only because they need them now, but this does not interfere with China’s long-term strategic plan to eliminate dependence on US technology.”