President Trump just wrapped up his China summit with Xi Jinping and came home with something no American president has brought back from Beijing in a decade — actual purchase orders. Boeing jets. Beef imports. Poultry tariffs slashed. The kind of tangible, dollars-and-cents wins that American farmers and factory workers can take to the bank.
Remember when Obama went to China and they made him exit through the back of Air Force One? Good times.
Beijing confirmed a major Boeing jet purchase as part of the deal framework established during the Trump-Xi summit, which concluded on May 16. China also agreed to cut select levies on American goods and ease restrictions on US beef and poultry imports — sectors that have been locked out of the Chinese market or strangled by punitive tariffs for years. The two sides agreed to establish formal trade and investment boards to keep the momentum going, according to ZeroHedge.
This is what happens when you send a dealmaker instead of a diplomat. Trump didn't go to Beijing to issue a joint communiqué that nobody reads. He didn't fly halfway around the world for a photo op and a handshake. He went to look Xi in the eye and walk out with signed commitments.
American cattle ranchers have been begging for fair access to the Chinese market — the largest meat-importing nation on Earth — for years. American poultry producers watched helplessly as Brazil and Thailand ate their lunch. Boeing has been hemorrhaging orders to Airbus while Washington played footsie with Beijing over "frameworks" and "ongoing discussions."
Trump ended the discussion. He closed the deal.
Here's what drives the establishment insane about this: it works. The same foreign policy geniuses who told us Trump would start World War III with his "reckless" approach to China are now watching him extract more concrete trade concessions in one summit than the last two administrations managed in twelve combined years.
Biden's China strategy was to mumble about "competition" while his Commerce Department handed out semiconductor waivers like candy. Obama's was to lecture Americans about the "arc of history" while China built artificial islands and stole our intellectual property.
Trump's strategy? Show up, make demands, leave with a win.
The trade and investment boards are the cherry on top. They institutionalize the relationship so that every time China starts backsliding — and they will — there's a formal mechanism to hold their feet to the fire. Not a sternly worded UN resolution. Not a think tank white paper. A board with teeth, born from a summit where both leaders sat at the table.
American workers got something real this week. Not a promise. Not a framework. Not a "path forward." Actual orders for American-made jets. Actual access for American beef and poultry. The kind of wins you can measure in jobs and paychecks.
But sure, tell me again how mean tweets are bad for foreign policy.
