Forty-seven days separate the Washington summit from the Nov. 10 expiry of the tariff truce

The trade deal Trump and Xi reached in Busan, South Korea was set to last one year and will expire Nov. 10, a week after the U.S. election, absent an extension.

The two sides are expected to extend a trade truce expiring in November, although for how long remains in question.

At a meeting last fall in South Korea, Trump and Xi agreed to suspend rare earth export controls and retaliatory tariff measures for a year.

A one-year extension of the trade truce is "our base case," China analysts at Bank of America Global Research said in a client note last week; that extension would maintain the status quo on tariffs and bar new export controls.

Bessent said senior negotiators from both countries discussed setting up a "U.S.-China AI Dialogue" and that the U.S. proposed the establishment of a notification system for AI incidents.

The Board of Trade agreed at Busan limits itself to "non-sensitive" consumer products - flip flops, toys, and kitchenware - while China is demanding the US ease export bans on high-tech goods like chipmaking gear and the US complains about Chinese overproduction and transhipment.

China has increased purchases of American soybeans in recent weeks, completing nearly half of the committed annual sum of 25 million tons this year, according to Reuters.

Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg last week, at an event with Morgan Stanley, downplayed expectations that Beijing would follow through on the 200-jetliner order commitment in a single blockbuster deal, expecting incremental orders by individual carriers instead.

Bessent, in an interview with CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Monday, said: "We had some deliverables that have not been completely fulfilled" by China as part of the trade agreement Trump and Xi reached in Busan.

A one-year extension agreed at this week's summit would carry the truce to Nov. 10, 2027.

As of July, the effective U.S. tariff rate of 22.8% on Chinese products is the highest among major U.S. trading partners, with steel and aluminum imports facing the heaviest duties, according to the Penn Wharton Budget Model.

There are 47 days between the Sept. 24 summit and the Nov. 10 expiry of the Busan suspensions.

The Congressional Research Service calculated the U.S. average tariff rate on China in July at roughly 36.5%, versus Beijing's 31% rate on U.S. goods.

In last year's trade war, U.S. levies on Chinese imports hit 145% at the peak, while Beijing's retaliatory duties reached 125%.

Roughly 12.5 million tons of the 25 million ton annual soybean commitment remain to be shipped.

Chad Brown, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told reporters on Monday: "The best the U.S. can hope for is probably just maintaining the status quo" and "That's really because of the leverage China holds at the moment over rare earths, permanent magnets."

U.S. total goods trade with China declined nearly 30% in 2025 from the prior year, and the first seven months of 2026 show a continued decline, according to U.S. Census data.

The U.S. goods trade deficit with China so far this year is roughly $91.2 billion, lower than the same period in 2025 but among the highest in the world.

Trump could flip his conciliatory posture toward Beijing, perhaps if Republicans are routed in November's midterms, as he did at the end of his first term.

Adam Posen argued in Foreign Affairs that China holds "escalation dominance" over the US in economic conflict, but that it "would not spare its own economy pain if it were forced into a tit-for-tat conflict with Washington."

Claire Reade, senior associate with the Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said "A number of inconsistent viewpoints seem to be jostling each other," as Trump dictates "the overarching approach" toward China "while letting more negative actions occur at the margins."

The CRS and Penn Wharton estimates of the U.S. tariff rate on Chinese goods for July differ by 13.7 percentage points.