President Donald Trump is slated to host Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the White House, and the stakes are sky high but some China watchers are once again keeping their expectations low. That's even as the Iran war could loom larger than ever over the leaders' talks, in light of a new U.S. plan to aggressively sanction Iran's business partners potentially including China, by far Tehran's biggest trading partner. But while the war threatens to rattle the superpowers' fragile relations, it may end up a smaller slice of the conversation, as it appeared to be when Trump and Xi met in Beijing four months ago. At that summit, Trump and a coterie of corporate leaders were lavishly feted by the Chinese but left with few concrete business deals or clear breakthroughs on the thorniest geopolitical issues, including Iran and Taiwan . This time, both sides still seem interested in avoiding moves that would risk torpedoing their current trade truce. "The relationship increasingly produces transactions without trust and stability without settlement," Craig Singleton, senior director for China at the nonpartisan Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told CNBC. It's "a low-expectations summit focused largely on managing the stalemate rather than resolving it," he said. Xi's trip to Washington is slated for Sept. 24, although China has not officially confirmed the visit. This week's G20 finance ministers' summit in North Carolina gave a glimpse at the daylight between the two countries: China was the only member to dissent from a joint statement , objecting to a paragraph urging "countries with excessive and persistent external surpluses" to stop distorting trade. China also took issue with language about the Iran war, according to the Treasury Department. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday maintained that the countries have much to agree on when it comes to Iran, but said it's "incumbent upon China" to find a solution. The White House is planning to host a formal state dinner for Xi, MS NOW reported Wednesday, citing four sources familiar with the matter. Only Britain's King Charles III has received similar treatment during Trump's second term so far, MS NOW reported. Trump's top-down style, which favors leader-to-leader dealmaking over the diplomatic "spade work" typical of prior administrations, is also dampening expectations, said Matthew Kroenig, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. "Trump's going to go in there and have a conversation with Xi and see what comes out of it," Kroenig told CNBC. They could emerge with announcements on key deliverables, he said, "But if so, it would be very top line, and then it would be up to the governments to work out the details." Nonetheless, the Washington summit is a major moment for the world's top economies, which are vying for dominance in a highly unstable world marked by multiple active wars and a global economy being reshaped by artificial intelligence. Bessent confirmed Tuesday that AI will be on the agenda when Trump and Xi meet. White House spokeswoman...
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