China's Response: Xi Vows to Defend Free Global Trade Against Trump. Commentary by Semyon Novoprudsky

The day after the meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, Xi promised to protect global free trade – and it's clear from whom.

One of the main outcomes of the first meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in six years was unexpected, but predictable. Exactly the day after the meeting, Xi promised to defend global free trade. Clearly, he would defend it from Trump himself.

It's telling that Xi made his promise at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Gyeongju, South Korea. Trump pointedly ignored the summit, meeting with the Chinese president the day before the forum's opening. Moreover, the purely economic outcome of the meeting between the leaders of the world's two largest economies is still unclear, at the very least.

Trump himself, in his characteristic manner of viewing every meeting with any political leader in any country as an incredible triumph, regardless of the outcome, rated the summit a 12 out of 10. However, the lack of joint statements, a press conference, and the relatively short duration of the talks (less than two hours) do not seem like a triumph.

Even less encouraging are the explanations provided by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. On October 30, in an interview with Fox Business Network, Bessent stated that an agreement with China could be concluded in the coming days, but did not specify a date. Only the US announced the previous framework interim trade agreement with China. Chinese authorities have not commented on its existence at all. It is clear that China's decision to defer export controls on rare earth metals for just one year (rather than lifting them entirely) signifies the absence of concrete and lasting trade agreements with the US.

Bessent himself made another cryptic statement on a far smaller issue in relations with China than the trade deal—the fate of TikTok: "We have finalized the TikTok agreement, having received China's approval, and I expect the process to move forward in the coming weeks and months, which will finally resolve this situation." If the agreement is finalized, it seems odd to say "expect" (not even certain) that this situation will be resolved within months (a very long time). If such an agreement exists, it should resolve the situation: it should determine how TikTok will operate in the United States and whether China will cede control to American businessmen.

But the main problem with global trade isn't even the highly probable absence of a coherent trade deal between the planet's two largest trading nations. It's clear that fundamental disagreements remain between China and the United States over the very definition of international trade.

China is content with its tariff-free, free trade with the rest of the world. Thanks to the scale and diversity of its exports, China enjoys a positive trade balance with most major countries. Donald Trump believes that the entire world is robbing hapless America, and therefore tariffs must be imposed even on its closest allies like Canada, not to mention freeloaders in the European Union and political adversaries like China.

Another point of contention is the attitude toward rules as such. China is perhaps the world's best at circumventing all manner of sanctions and restrictions. It has long been importing Iranian oil in defiance of sanctions. And when Trump began aggressively imposing higher tariffs on Chinese goods in the spring of 2025, almost immediately after returning to the White House, China immediately began selling them to the United States through third countries. At the same time, the Chinese authorities are interested in strong and predictable rules—both political and trade—since the bulk of the country's economic growth is tied to foreign economic ties, even more than domestic consumption.

The Trump administration seems to have no regard for rules. It constantly issues all sorts of ultimatums to its trading partners, only to backtrack or change the terms that were supposedly already agreed upon. Dozens of widely announced trade deals with various countries around the world have failed to materialize. The US is demanding that India completely stop purchasing Russian oil, but is not demanding the same from China. In the framework trade deal with the EU, the US pushed through a clause requiring European countries to purchase an astronomical $750 billion in US energy products in 2026-2028, increasing volumes tenfold. But the problem is that the US itself is unlikely to be able to supply such volumes.

The chaos in global trade, sown by Trump's mercurial stance and intransigence, is exacerbated by the lack of basic trade agreements between the EU and China. Meanwhile, it seems the EU and China share a secret desire: to "wait out" Trump and try to reach meaningful agreements under the new American administration. But they'll have to wait just over three more years. That's an eternity in these turbulent times.

Against this backdrop, the real "host" of the APEC summit, Xi Jinping, is logically positioning China as a bulwark of global free trade and the stability of foreign trade relations. The confrontation between Donald Trump, a proponent of tariff wars and deals favoring the US, and China, a leader in free trade without unnecessary tariffs, is likely to become one of the main themes in the global economy in the coming years.

Of course, China and the United States also have a political standoff, which will influence economic decisions, among other things. But the changes on our planet have proven quite bizarre. The United States, a former bastion of the free world, globalism, and economic liberalism, is becoming the main driver of economic protectionism and the destruction of global trade ties. Meanwhile, China, far from democratic and liberal economic freedoms, is now the leading advocate of free trade.