Trump-Xi Summit Leaves Fentanyl Promises and Warnings of New Era

President Donald Trump met Chinese President Xi Jinping last week. The White House released a fact sheet on Sunday that listed commitments Beijing made during the talks.

There is always optimism when American and Chinese leaders meet. Two reasons suggest caution now.

Washington is again talking to China, which has used past discussions to persuade American presidents to delay action while Beijing continued unacceptable conduct. Fentanyl is one example. Trump said he raised the issue with Xi. The Chinese leader has made four promises on the topic to American presidents, including one to Trump in 2018 and another in 2025. He has violated all of them.

Trump imposed an additional 20 percent fentanyl tariff on Chinese goods last year. Sara Carter, his drug czar, said in March that China has continued sales of precursors for the synthetic opioid.

The time for talking about fentanyl should be over, but Washington has given Xi more time.

Xi also displayed an aggressive attitude during the summit. On Thursday he mentioned the Thucydides Trap, a reference to a declining power challenging a rising one. The remark was seen as an insult to Trump and the United States.

Charles Burton of the Sinopsis think tank said Xi’s comments signaled his expectation that the West would accept being overtaken by China and therefore not challenge it anywhere.

On the first day of the summit, Xi spoke about the “new era,” his phrase for a period in which the United States is pushed aside and China dominates the world. In March 2023 he told Russian President Vladimir Putin that change was coming that had not happened in 100 years and that the two countries were driving it together.

To make the meaning clear, the Chinese foreign ministry announced on the 16th that Putin will visit Beijing starting May 19.

Burton said Xi views himself as the modern heir of China’s great emperors and that the concept of fair and reciprocal relations with any foreign country is absent from his worldview. Xi has pushed the imperial-era notion that China is the world’s only sovereign state and that it rules “all under heaven.”

Foreign Minister Wang Yi wrote in the Central Party School newspaper that Xi Jinping thought on diplomacy has transcended traditional Western theories of international relations for the past 300 years. The reference points to the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, which established the current order of competing sovereign states. Wang’s use of “transcended” suggests Xi wants a world without sovereign states, ruled by China.

Charles Payne, the Fox Business anchor, suggested the Trump-Xi summit could echo the Reagan-Gorbachev dialogue. The comparison is closer to the mark than Xi’s references. China’s economy is deteriorating, its property market is plunging, the Communist Party is racked by purges, the military is in disarray, and its population is collapsing. China will almost surely lose more than half its population by the turn of the century.

Xi has vilified former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev for allowing the Soviet Union to dissolve. In a 2012 speech, Xi said Gorbachev’s failure showed that ideals and convictions wavered. Reagan was able to stabilize relations so the Soviet Union could dissolve without catastrophe. Xi is far more determined than Gorbachev, so Trump’s challenge in managing a faltering China will be greater.