Power isn’t just measured in GDP or tonnage of soybeans, but by who sets the rules of the game; on that front, Xi’s words carried the real authority
US President Donald Trump has somehow unwittingly revealed the emergence of a bipolar trade order.
“It was a good meeting for two very large, powerful countries. And that’s the way we should get along with a large, powerful (country),” Trump said, describing his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping after six years.
When Trump rates his own diplomatic triumphs, the scale tends to break under the weight of his self-regard. After his meeting with China’s Xi Jinping in Busan, South Korea, Trump declared that the new “trade truce” between Washington and Beijing deserved a “12 on a scale of one to 10.”
Behind the bravado
Because beneath the bombast of America’s “12-out-of-10” deal lies a quiet reality: Xi got nearly everything he wanted, and the US just locked itself into a precarious, one-year pause in a trade war it no longer knows how to win.
Trump speaks in the language of real estate—deals, wins, losses, and temporary truces. Xi speaks in the language of civilisation—continuity, balance, and destiny.
Trump insists this was a meeting between “two very large, powerful countries”, as if size alone confers equality. But power isn’t just measured in GDP or tonnage of soybeans. It’s measured by who sets the rules of the game. And on that front, Xi’s words carried the real authority.
“China and the US should be partners and friends,” Xi said, with his trademark calm. “In the face of winds, waves, and challenges, we should stay the right course.”
Also read: 'Optics of Busan meeting show neither Trump nor Xi wants escalation
That maritime metaphor—of the “giant ship” of China–US relations—wasn’t just poetic. It was a statement of control. Xi was at the helm. Trump, for all his posturing, was the passenger.
Details are telling
The so-called “truce” is a one-year arrangement that Trump’s team says could be extended. But the details are telling. The United States will slash tariffs on Chinese goods by 10 percentage points—from 57 per cent to roughly 47 per cent—specifically reducing a fentanyl-related tariff that Trump had imposed with great fanfare.
In return, China has agreed to buy more American soybeans, a symbolic concession aimed at placating Trump’s political base: struggling farmers in the US Midwest who have paid the price for his earlier trade war. Trump even urged them, in his usual carnival-barker style, to “go out and buy more land and bigger tractors.”
The exchange at the heart of this truce—US soybeans for Chinese access to semiconductors—is almost tragicomic in its symbolism.
Meanwhile, Beijing walked away with tangible gains. The US will ease restrictions on Chinese access to advanced semiconductors while allowing Nvidia—America’s $5 trillion chip titan—to resume sales of certain advanced chips to China. Trump claimed this was “up to Nvidia”, positioning himself as a “referee” rather than a regulator. That’s diplomatic sleight-of-hand: a US president publicly disclaiming responsibility for the most strategic tech chokepoint of the 21st century.
China also secured the lifting of port servicing fees for its shipping companies, while the US received a reciprocal gesture in return. And Trump, seeking to spin even the smallest victory into a windfall, announced that “hundreds of billions of dollars” would now “flow into our country”.
No evidence really supports that claim.
Emergence of bipolar order?
Trump framed the meeting as evidence of a new “bipolar order”— two great powers finally learning to get along.
Also read: Trump-Xi Busan summit: Can the US-China trade truce hold?
Xi’s rhetoric was restrained but unmistakably strategic. His statement that “China has no intention to challenge or supplant anyone” may sound conciliatory, but it’s the classic language of a power confident enough to bide its time.
While Trump measures victory in soybean shipments and press clips, Xi measures it in decades.
Underneath the smiles and handshakes, Beijing walked away with three wins:
1. Economic stability: Xi secured trade breathing room while China’s economy recalibrates around domestic consumption and clean-tech exports.
2. Tech access: Even limited re-entry into US semiconductor supply chains helps China maintain its AI and defense ambitions.
3. Global optics: In the battle for narrative control, China appeared measured, responsible, and forward-looking, while Trump played the part of a salesman hawking short-term deals.
The world saw not a “trade truce,” but an apparent transfer of leverage.
The Xi doctrine
Xi’s domestic message was one of confidence: China’s economy grew 5.2 per cent this year, he reminded the world—a remarkable feat amid global slowdowns.
“Our economy is like a vast ocean—big, resilient, and promising,” he said. That wasn’t a mere metaphor; it was a mission. China’s “ocean” now stretches from the South China Sea to the Belt and Road corridors of Eurasia, where American influence has ebbed.
For the Modi government, seemingly poised to conclude a bilateral trade deal with Washington, Busan is a lesson: mere bombastic claims of Vishwaguru status and friendship with Trump could reduce New Delhi once again to indentured-labour status.
Trump, by contrast, sees diplomacy through the lens of transaction, not transformation. He speaks in the language of real estate—deals, wins, losses, and temporary truces. Xi speaks in the language of civilisation—continuity, balance, and destiny.
In Busan, those two vocabularies collided, and the result was a deal that reflects Trump’s need for instant gratification and Xi’s patience for long-term power accumulation.
Soybeans for semiconductors
The exchange at the heart of this truce—US soybeans for Chinese access to semiconductors—is almost tragicomic in its symbolism. America, once the global manufacturing leader, now trades agricultural commodities for entry into the digital future.
Also read: Why a trade deal is not likely to solve all vexing US-China issues
Trump may tout the farm belt’s relief as proof of success, but the real prize in this negotiation wasn’t soybeans—it was silicon. Beijing has been fighting tooth and nail to secure a foothold in advanced chips, and any concession from Washington, however small, is a strategic victory.
Meanwhile, Trump’s decision to reduce the fentanyl tariff by half on the promise that Beijing will “work hard” to stop exports of the deadly opioid drug is a diplomatic leap of faith—one with lethal domestic consequences if China’s cooperation proves symbolic.
America’s strategic drift
The Busan truce exposes a deeper problem: America’s lack of a coherent China strategy. Trump calls it a “deal”; Xi calls it a “partnership”. Those words don’t mean the same thing.
For Washington, the truce is an ad hoc political instrument—a talking point to claim victory ahead of election season. For Beijing, it’s a tactical intermission: a chance to consolidate economic stability and project calm leadership to the developing world.
Xi’s closing remarks—calling for cooperation in fields like artificial intelligence, money laundering prevention, and pandemic response—were not gestures of goodwill. They were an implicit invitation: let China set the agenda for the next phase of global governance.
Trump’s self-congratulatory posts on Truth Social, by contrast, read like dispatches from a parallel universe: “Farmers will be very happy!” “A great day for both countries!”
It’s performative optimism masking strategic retreat.
World watches and learns
To his credit, Trump understands the optics of power. What he doesn’t grasp is the difference between pageantry and policy. His Busan theatrics—complete with exaggerated superlatives and vague promises—reveal a leader obsessed with the performance of victory, not its substance.
Xi, on the other hand, plays the long game. His message was carefully designed not for Trump, but for the world: that China is the calm, steady hand in an era of chaos; that it prefers dialogue over confrontation; and that America, once the architect of global order, now negotiates by whim.
The question is not who won the Busan truce. It’s who will still be shaping the rules of trade, technology, and power when this “one-year deal” quietly expires.
Lesson for India
The Busan détente reinforced what the ancient Greek historian Thucydides wrote in his magnum opus on the Peloponnesian war: “Rights” are only pertinent “between equals in power,” and for this reason, “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”
For the Narendra Modi government, which is seemingly poised to conclude the much-touted bilateral trade agreement with Washington, it is a lesson: mere bombastic claims of Vishwaguru status and friendship with Trump could reduce New Delhi once again to indentured-labour status.
Sadly, this is what the British Raj did—and, unfortunately, it is being repeated all over again.
(The Federal seeks to present views and opinions from all sides of the spectrum. The information, ideas or opinions in the articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Federal)
