For the first time in over a decade, the leaders of the world's two most consequential powers met on American soil, their handshake on a hundred-foot red carpet carrying the weight of trade wars, technological rivalry, and the fragile architecture of global stability. President Trump's decision to greet Xi Jinping personally at Joint Base Andrews—a gesture unseen since Kennedy's era—signaled that both nations understand the cost of continued estrangement, even as the fault lines between them run deep. The three-day summit in Washington arrives at a moment when public opinion in both countries