Xi Deals the Cards

In Washington, the Chinese president arrives with a less obvious advantage: many of the games Trump wants to play no longer depend solely on the United States

To understand Xi Jinping's visit to Washington, perhaps one must start with the wrong question.

Not asking what Trump will manage to get from Xi.

But asking how many cards Trump still has to put on the table.

On September 24, the Chinese president will be at the White House for a state visit that comes at a particularly delicate moment in relations between the two largest economic and technological powers on the planet. It is the first visit by a Chinese president to Washington in over ten years and the third direct meeting between Xi and Trump since Trump's return to the White House.

It will not be a summit from which to necessarily expect a grand agreement.

It will rather be a game of positioning.

And this time Xi arrives in Washington with some cards that just a few years ago seemed to belong exclusively to the United States.

Trump's Paradox

Trump has built much of his international policy on America's ability to use the market, tariffs, technology, and financial strength as instruments of pressure.

It is a strategy consistent with the idea of America First: if the United States represents the most important market in the world, they can turn access to that market into geopolitical leverage.

The problem is that China is no longer just the country that sells to Americans.

It has become one of the main industrial, technological, and commercial hubs on the planet.

And above all, it has progressively built alternatives.

Data available on the eve of the summit show a China with strongly growing exports and an ability to sell more and more to the rest of the world, while the trade truce with Washington remains fragile and incomplete. Reuters describes precisely this paradox: American tariff pressure has not prevented the Chinese trade machine from continuing to expand.

This does not mean that Trump is "weak."

It means something more interesting:

American leverage is no longer unilateral leverage.

The Trade Card

The first table will naturally be the trade one.

Washington and Beijing are trying to make the so-called Board of Trade operational, along with possible tariff reductions on some categories of non-strategic products. The discussion also concerns agriculture, energy, consumer goods, and medical devices.

But here a fundamental difference emerges.

Trump can impose tariffs.

Xi can decide where to shift Chinese trade flows.

It is a substantial difference.

China does not necessarily have to win the trade war with the United States. It can also progressively reduce its dependence on the American market while continuing to expand relations with Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and the Global South.

The real power, therefore, is not just selling.

It is being able to choose where to sell.

The Rare Earth Card

Then there is one of the most concrete economic weapons: critical raw materials.

Rare earths are essential for a huge part of the technology and defense industry. Washington wants to secure reliable flows, while Beijing maintains a decisive position in the global supply chain.

This is precisely why the issue will be on the table in Washington.

But here Trump faces a structural problem: American industrial policy can accelerate the diversification of supplies, but it cannot create a complete alternative supply chain overnight.

China, on the other hand, has built that supply chain over decades.

And it is a temporal difference that no presidential tweet can erase.

The Geopolitical Card

Then there is geopolitics.

Taiwan.

Iran.

Middle East.

Pacific.

These are seemingly different dossiers, but they share a common characteristic: America's ability to unilaterally determine events is more limited than the United States' military power suggests.

Taiwan is the most evident case.

Washington maintains a security relationship with Taipei, while Beijing considers Taiwan a matter of national sovereignty.

But when the United States must simultaneously manage the Middle East, technological competition with China, European security, and the Indo-Pacific confrontation, every new crisis produces a problem of priorities.

Xi does not necessarily need to obtain a formal concession.

It is enough for him to demonstrate that Beijing has become indispensable for managing multiple dossiers simultaneously.

This dynamic also emerges on Iran: the United States and China have divergent interests, and Washington cannot simply decide what Beijing's behavior should be.

And Then Comes AI

But there is an even more important game.

The one that could decide the technological hierarchy of the next decade.

Artificial intelligence.

And this is where Trump's position becomes particularly interesting.

Trump has repeatedly argued for the need to accelerate the development of American AI and has rejected the idea of slowing the technological race, partly because this could allow China to catch up.

The logic is simple:

run faster than China.

But speed is not the only variable.

Because the AI race simultaneously requires chips, energy, data centers, capital, models, data, talent, infrastructure, and markets.

And above all, it requires something that neither country fully possesses:

control of the entire ecosystem.

The United States has an extraordinarily strong position in models, advanced semiconductors, technological capital, and large platforms.

China, however, has a gigantic industrial base, enormous manufacturing capacity, a domestic market, and a capacity for technological implementation on a scale difficult to replicate.

This is why AI is rapidly becoming something more than a technological competition.

It is becoming a strategic equilibrium between two systems.

The Most Surprising Thing: An AI Hotline Is Needed

There is a detail that perhaps tells better than any speech the new nature of the competition.

Washington and Beijing are discussing a sort of notification mechanism for AI incidents with national security implications. The idea, promoted by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, is to create at least a channel through which the United States and China can communicate quickly in the event of potentially dangerous AI events.

It is an apparently technical fact.

In reality, it is geopolitically enormous.

During the Cold War, a hotline existed because a nuclear incident could turn into a war between superpowers.

Today, discussions are beginning about an analogous mechanism for artificial intelligence.

This means that AI is no longer considered merely a technology.

It is now an infrastructure of power.

And when two nuclear powers must begin building tools to prevent an AI system from turning an incident into an international crisis, the nature of the competition has changed.

Trump on the Margins?

This is where the provocation of the title acquires meaning.

Saying Trump is "on the margins" would be excessive.

The United States remains the world's greatest military and financial power and retains technological and industrial assets of enormous value.

But on many of the dossiers Trump would like to use as negotiating leverage, China now possesses an autonomous capacity to respond.

Tariffs?

Beijing can diversify markets.

Rare earths?

China occupies strategic positions in the supply chain.

AI?

The United States has enormous advantages, but China is a systemic competitor and not a mere follower.

Trade?

The American market remains fundamental, but the Chinese economy has built a much broader global network.

Iran and the Middle East?

China does not control the region, but it is an economic and diplomatic actor that Washington must consider.

Taiwan?

Beijing can make any scenario extremely costly and complex for the United States.

So the problem for Trump is not that the United States has lost power.

It is that American power alone is no longer sufficient to determine the outcome.

Xi Does Not Have to Win

And this is perhaps the most interesting point of the visit.

Xi does not need to leave the White House with a spectacular victory.

It is enough for him to keep trade channels open, avoid an uncontrolled technological escalation, defend his strategic positions, and demonstrate that every major global issue also passes through Beijing.

China can afford a long-term strategy.

The United States, on the other hand, is subject to much more immediate political and economic pressure.

This does not mean that Xi has a dominant position.

It means that the timelines of the two powers are not necessarily the same.

And in a strategic competition, time is one of the most important forms of power.

The Real Question in Washington

This is why the question on September 24 will not simply be:

"What will Trump get from Xi?"

The question will be:

"What cards can Washington still play without revealing its own?"

Trump has built his foreign policy on the idea that the United States must return to playing with all its cards.

But Xi arrives in Washington to demonstrate something different: that China, too, now has a full deck.

And perhaps the real geopolitical transformation is not that one of the two powers has won.

It is that, for the first time in a long time, neither can play alone anymore.

Xi's visit to Washington may therefore not be remembered for a grand agreement.

It may be remembered for something more important:

the moment when Washington had to recognize that the global game is no longer played with a single deck of cards.