Trump's Trade Visit: A Study in Frustration The pomp and circumstance surrounding US President Donald Trump's visit to Beijing has given way to a familiar refrain: "preliminary" agreements that promise much but deliver little.
The commerce ministry's description of the tariff, agricultural, and aircraft deals as "preliminary" is a diplomatic way of saying that nothing concrete was achieved during the two day talks.
The optics of the visit were impressive, with Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, engaging in warm rhetoric about the importance of bilateral relations and cooperation on trade.