Biden to meet Xi in Peru as Trump's return reshapes US-China dynamics

President Joe Biden will sit down with China's Xi Jinping on Saturday in Lima, Peru, during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit—a carefully arranged final meeting between the two leaders before Trump takes office in January. The timing is deliberate and weighted. Beijing is already preparing for what comes next: a Trump administration that has promised to impose blanket 60 percent tariffs on all Chinese exports to the United States, a move that would reshape the already fractured relationship between Washington and Beijing in ways that dwarf even the trade wars of Trump's first term.

A senior Biden administration official confirmed the meeting would take place during the APEC summit, though the official declined to say whether Biden would use the time to address Xi's concerns about the incoming administration or discuss the U.S.-China relationship with Trump himself during the president-elect's scheduled visit to the White House on Wednesday. The official offered only that the next administration would "need to find ways to manage that tough, complicated relationship." It was a careful non-answer, the kind that signals how delicate these final weeks have become.

The relationship between the two powers has been strained on multiple fronts for years. Washington and Beijing disagree sharply over China's support for Russia during its invasion of Ukraine, over human rights, over technology competition, and over Taiwan—the self-ruled democracy that Beijing claims as its own territory. U.S. intelligence officials have assessed that China has dramatically increased sales to Russia of machine tools, microelectronics, and other technology that Moscow is using to manufacture missiles, tanks, aircraft, and weaponry for the war in Ukraine. Last month, the Biden administration sanctioned two Chinese companies accused of directly assisting Russia in building long-range attack drones. The tensions run deep: Biden ordered the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon that crossed U.S. airspace last year, and his administration has repeatedly criticized Chinese military moves toward Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan.

During his campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump spoke openly of his personal relationship with Xi, a connection that began well during his first term before deteriorating over trade disputes and disagreements about the origins of COVID-19. His promise of 60 percent tariffs on Chinese goods represents a significant escalation. In his first term, the U.S. imposed tariffs on more than $360 billion in Chinese products. That pressure brought Beijing to the negotiating table, and in 2020, the two sides signed a trade deal in which China committed to improving intellectual property protections and purchasing an additional $200 billion in American goods. A research group later found that China had bought essentially none of the goods it had promised.

After Trump's election victory, Xi sent a congratulatory message calling for the U.S. and China to manage their differences and work together in a new era, according to Chinese state media. But the incoming administration's tariff threats suggest a harder line ahead. Biden, meanwhile, has spent months arranging this final meeting with Xi. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan traveled to Beijing in late August to meet with his Chinese counterpart and with Xi himself. Sullivan indicated afterward that a final meeting between the two leaders could happen at APEC or at the Group of 20 summit in Rio de Janeiro the following week, which both are scheduled to attend.

Biden has tried to maintain a steady relationship with Xi even as his administration has raised repeated concerns about what it views as malign Chinese actions. Saturday's talks will be the third meeting between the two leaders during Biden's presidency—they met in Woodside, California, last November during the 2023 APEC summit, and spoke by phone in April. In this final meeting, Biden is expected to focus on efforts to stop the flow of Chinese-manufactured chemicals used to produce fentanyl, concerns about Beijing's indirect support for Russia's war in Ukraine, cybersecurity threats, and the critical importance of maintaining military-to-military communications channels. These are the threads Biden hopes to preserve as the transition approaches and the relationship enters its next, uncertain chapter.