The image of Donald Trump and Xi Jinping sharing chocolate cake at Mar-a-Lago in 2017 felt like a fever dream of geopolitical harmony. It wasn't. While the world watched two "strongmen" trade pleasantries, the real machinery of American diplomacy was grinding through a transformation that would eventually shatter the forty-year consensus on China.
I've watched this play out from the inside. Not as a spectator, but through the lens of those who had to translate "America First" into actual policy on the ground in Beijing. William "Bill" Klein, a veteran diplomat who served as the Acting Deputy Chief of Mission in Beijing during those turbulent years, saw the disconnect between the high-stakes summitry and the cold reality of a relationship in free-fall.
If you think those summits were about "deals," you're missing the point. They were about the collision of two incompatible worldviews.
The Mar-a-Lago Mirage and the 100-Day Failure
The April 2017 summit at Mar-a-Lago was supposed to be the "reset." Trump wanted to show he could charm the uncharmable. Xi wanted to size up the wild card in the White House. For a moment, it worked. They launched a "100-Day Action Plan" to resolve trade differences.
But here's what most people get wrong. The Chinese side viewed these summits as a way to "manage" Trump. They figured if they offered enough "grand gestures"—buying some extra Boeing jets or a few tons of soybeans—the structural complaints about intellectual property theft and state subsidies would just... go away.
They miscalculated. While Trump loved the optics, the hawks in his cabinet, like Robert Lighthizer and Peter Navarro, weren't buying the theater. Klein and his team in Beijing were seeing a Chinese leadership that was digging in, not opening up. The 100 days came and went. The trade deficit didn't budge. The "friendship" was a thin veneer over a structural earthquake.
Beijing 2017 and the State Visit Plus
When Trump went to Beijing in November 2017, the Chinese pulled out every stop. They called it a "State Visit Plus." They gave him dinner in the Forbidden City—a rare honor. It was a masterclass in "flattery diplomacy."
Honestly, it was a trap. By treating Trump like royalty, Xi hoped to secure a "G2" arrangement where the U.S. would essentially stay out of China's backyard. But while the leaders were clinking glasses, the U.S. National Security Strategy was being rewritten to label China a "strategic competitor."
The disconnect was total. You had a President who valued personal rapport and a bureaucracy that had finally decided engagement was a failed experiment. Klein has noted that the Chinese side often struggled to understand who was actually in charge of U.S. policy. Was it the President’s Twitter feed? Or the hardliners at the State Department and USTR?
The Buenos Aires Truce
By the time they met in Buenos Aires in late 2018, the trade war was in full swing. This wasn't a dinner; it was a ceasefire negotiation. They walked away with a 90-day truce.
The problem? The U.S. demands were now "structural." We weren't just asking for more soybean purchases. We were asking China to change its entire economic model—to stop forcing tech transfers and to end the state-led subsidies that gave their companies an unfair edge.
For Xi, that wasn't a trade negotiation. It was an existential threat to the Communist Party's control. This is the part people overlook. Every time Trump and Xi sat down, they were speaking different languages. Trump spoke in terms of a "deal" (transactional). Xi spoke in terms of "national rejuvenation" (ideological). You can't bridge that gap with chocolate cake.
Why the Summits Didn't Save the Relationship
We often hear that "leader-level engagement" is the only way to prevent war. Maybe. But in the Trump-Xi era, these summits often made things worse by creating false expectations.
- The Transparency Gap: The U.S. side would leave a meeting and announce a list of concessions. The Chinese side would release a vague statement about "mutual respect." This led to immediate "he-said, she-said" cycles that burnt whatever trust was left.
- The Huawei Factor: You can't talk about these summits without mentioning the arrest of Meng Wanzhou. The fact that it happened the same day as the Buenos Aires dinner was a slap in the face to the Chinese concept of "face." It proved to Beijing that "Deep State" actors were actively undermining the leaders' rapport.
- The COVID-19 End Game: Any lingering hope for the summits died in 2020. The "Phase One" trade deal, signed in January 2020, was DOA. Once the pandemic hit and the "China Virus" rhetoric began, the personal channel between Trump and Xi didn't just freeze—it shattered.
What This Means for 2026
Fast forward to today. We're in a world where the "truce" of late 2025 has slowed the bleeding, but the scar tissue is permanent.
If you're looking for a return to the "good old days" of engagement, stop. The lesson from the Trump-Xi summits is that personal chemistry cannot override national interest. Bill Klein’s experience in Beijing taught us that the "State Visit Plus" was the high-water mark of an era that is never coming back.
The real diplomacy is no longer happening in gilded ballrooms at Mar-a-Lago. It's happening in the export control offices and the semiconductor labs. The summits were the theater; the trade war was the reality.
If you want to understand where we're headed, look at the tariff schedules, not the dinner menus. The era of believing a single "deal" can fix the U.S.-China relationship is over. We're in a long-term grind now.
Keep an eye on the upcoming bilateral meetings in April 2026. Don't look at the smiles. Look at whether anyone is actually talking about "structural" changes, or if we're just buying more soybeans to keep the peace for another six months.
