Xi-Trump summit ends with few deals, but a managed decline of U.S.-China relations may be the point

Yet given how far apart the U.S. and China are on a range of important issues—trade, export controls, the status of Taiwan, and today’s conflicts in Ukraine and Iran—it’s not surprising that few outside observers expected much to emerge from Xi’s trip to Washington. “Expectations were low for this meeting and those expectations were met,” says Lindsay Newman, a visiting research fellow at King’s College London. Eswar Prasad, a professor of trade policy at Cornell University, agrees that the Trump-Xi summit “fizzled out on substance, confirming the vast gulf between the two countries’ objectives and the lack of enthusiasm on…