A weakened Trump to test China's appetite for deal-making

The highly anticipated meeting in Beijing of the leaders of China and the United States this Thursday and Friday was supposed to be the most consequential foreign visit of President Donald Trump’s second term.

And it could have been, if the trip had taken place as planned six weeks ago.

Back then, on short notice, Trump postponed it because of his attack on Iran, hoping for a quick success.

The Chinese hosts, although allergic to unscripted last-minute changes to protocol, were accommodating – they didn’t want to be publicly humiliated by the whims of Trump.

So, the meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping will (probably) happen, but don’t expect any major results now.

“The summit’s diplomacy has only reinforced the deeper drivers diminishing the likelihood of substantive gains,” said Jonathan Czin, a China expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

“By signalling early and loudly a desire for multiple presidential encounters this year, the Trump administration may have reduced Beijing’s incentive to offer any major concessions,” he added.

After ten weeks of Iran war and the increasingly difficult attempts to find an end to the conflict, Trump’s position has become more precarious, as oil prices have surged and his approval ratings plummeted.