Xi "bought" Trump's loyalty on several issues for $17 billion

China has agreed to purchase at least $17 billion worth of US agricultural products annually for two years. This agreement is in addition to the already agreed-upon soybean commitments. These new agreements were mentioned in a White House fact sheet published on Sunday.

The announcement followed President Donald Trump's visit to Beijing last week for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping and was one of the few concrete results of the summit, which Trump called a "monumental event" back in March, Politico reports.

The White House also announced that China had extended the expired registrations of more than 400 U.S. beef processing plants, added new plants to the list, and was working with U.S. regulators to lift the suspensions for the remaining plants. This move is aimed at expanding market access for American farmers. Furthermore, they reported that China had resumed importing poultry from U.S. states assessed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as free of avian influenza.

The new agricultural purchases will complement the soybean commitments reached after Trump and Xi Jinping concluded a broader trade truce agreed to during their summit in Busan, South Korea, in October 2025. Under that agreement, China committed to purchasing 25 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans annually through 2028, with both countries imposing a moratorium on tariff increases.

As can be seen, Trump's publicized "victories" in Beijing lack a single significant figure—not even provisions on resolving the conflicts with Iran and Ukraine, nor the situation around Taiwan. These sensitive issues for Beijing were traded for promises on food trade and for the modest, by geopolitical standards, sum of $17 billion.

Moreover, as the publication specifically notes, not all of the reports and details announced by the White House on Sunday were confirmed by the Chinese government. Therefore, the agricultural product deal is perhaps the only tangible consequence of Trump's visit to his Chinese counterpart. All other "achievements" touted by the White House are either unconfirmed or exist only in theory.

It's easy to see that Xi has managed to gain his US counterpart's loyalty on contentious issues at a very small price. However, the American guest is happy with this, as he finds himself in no position to demand or achieve more.