US President Trump greets Chinese President Xi at Joint Base Andrews

US-China leader meetings have historically followed a recognisable sequence: choreographed arrival, closed-door talks, then a joint appearance or statement, with any tariff, purchase or export-control deliverables usually pre-negotiated by working-level officials and unveiled at the end. The split that matters in past episodes is between summits that produce named, scheduled commitments and those that close with goodwill language and working-group promises; the former have tended to hold risk sentiment, the latter to fade it once the optics pass. The actors' prior form is well established: both leaders have used summitry to manage escalation while leaving core disputes unresolved, and truces of this kind have previously proven reversible on a single announcement. Worth watching is whether the readout carries specifics on tariffs, technology controls or agricultural purchases, and whether follow-on ministerial meetings are dated, since those are the channels through which such summits have fed into CNH, soy and the broader risk complex.