BeijingTrump and Xi open a technology-heavy summit.
Chip export licences, artificial intelligence model rules, electric-vehicle tariffs, and post-Iran-war supply chains dominate the US-China agenda.
No framework has been disclosed; both governments enter with active tariffs and chip-export controls in place.
Sources: Rest of World
THE FOUNDRY CHOKEPOINT
Advanced AI chips are designed in the US but fabricated almost entirely in Taiwan. TSMC produces roughly 90% of the world's leading-edge logic chips below 7nm. Every export-control fight ultimately routes through a single island 180 km off the Chinese coast.
THE ENTITY LIST MECHANIC
US export controls don't ban sales outright — they require a license, which is then denied. The Commerce Department's Entity List grew from a few hundred names in 2018 to over a thousand Chinese firms by 2024, covering Huawei, SMIC, YMTC, and most of China's AI hardware ecosystem.
THE EV INVERSION
China went from importing cars to dominating global EV exports in under a decade. BYD overtook Tesla in quarterly sales in late 2023. The US 100% tariff on Chinese EVs (2024) and EU 35% tariff exist because at unsubsidized prices, BYD would undercut every Western automaker on its home market.
THE RARE EARTH LEVERAGE
China refines roughly 90% of the world's rare earths and an even higher share of the heavy rare earths needed for EV motors, wind turbines, and precision-guided munitions. Mining happens in many countries; separation chemistry — toxic, capital-intensive, and politically unpopular — has consolidated in China since the 1990s.
WHY POST-IRAN SUPPLY CHAINS MATTER
The 2025 Iran conflict revealed how thin the West's drone, missile, and electronics inventories had become. Reconstituting them requires components — gallium, germanium, neodymium, silicon carbide wafers — that China either dominates or restricts under its own export-control regime introduced in 2023.
THE DECOUPLING ARITHMETIC
US–China goods trade was roughly $660bn in 2018, the year tariffs began. By 2024 it had fallen below $580bn even in nominal terms — a real decline of around 25%. Mexico, not China, is now America's largest trading partner. The relationship is rewiring through Vietnam, Mexico, and Malaysia rather than ending.