President Donald Trump’s state summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington is formally a bilateral encounter, but several of the issues surrounding the talks extend directly into European policy.
Trump and First Lady Melania Trump personally greeted Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday, an unusually high-level airport reception preceding Thursday’s formal ceremonies at the White House. According to the programme released by the White House, the state visit includes bilateral talks and a state dinner attended by government and business leaders.
Xi, in his remarks at the White House arrival ceremony, said China and the United States should expand cooperation and develop what Beijing describes as a relationship of “strategic stability”.
For the European Union, however, the important question is not simply whether Washington and Beijing can manage their rivalry. It is whether decisions reached between them affect Western pressure on Russia, Europe’s access to critical raw materials and security in the Taiwan Strait.
China and the pressure on Russia
European governments have increasingly focused on Beijing’s relationship with Moscow.
At the Foreign Affairs Council in June, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas described China as a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Ministers also discussed reports that Chinese military personnel had been involved in training Russian personnel, while acknowledging the difficulty of reducing European dependence on Chinese critical raw materials.
Brussels has also increasingly used sanctions against companies outside Russia.
The EU’s 21st sanctions package, adopted in July, added 51 entities accused of supporting Russia’s military-industrial complex or enabling sanctions circumvention. Twenty-seven were based outside Russia, including 14 in China, four of them in Hong Kong.
Washington has meanwhile acquired a potentially much more disruptive instrument.
Trump on 18 September signed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, expanding American sanctions and tariff powers against Russia. One provision authorises duties of up to 100 per cent on goods from countries identified as major purchasers of Russian crude oil or natural gas, or major facilitators of oil-sanctions evasion.
China’s position as a major buyer of Russian energy therefore creates a potential conflict between two US objectives: maintaining pressure on Moscow while avoiding another major trade confrontation with Beijing.
How Washington handles that contradiction matters to Europe. EU sanctions can restrict Russian access to European markets and technology, but pressure on Moscow’s energy revenues is harder to sustain if large alternative customers remain available.
Europe faces its own China dependency
The dilemma is familiar in Brussels.
Europe is attempting to reduce strategic dependencies on China without severing one of its largest trading relationships. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament this month that the EU remains more than 80 per cent dependent on China for many critical raw materials and around 90 per cent for some rare earths. She announced plans for stronger European procurement and stockpiling arrangements.
As EU Today has previously reported, the Commission has already prepared an emergency response to possible renewed Chinese rare-earth restrictions, reflecting concern that export licensing difficulties could quickly affect European vehicle manufacturing, electronics, energy infrastructure and defence production.
Attempts to create alternatives within Europe are also encountering financial difficulties. Twenty-three of the EU’s 60 designated strategic projects recently warned Brussels of financing, liquidity or market-access problems, complicating efforts to reduce reliance on Chinese supply chains.
That means any US–China understanding over rare-earth exports will be examined closely in Brussels. An agreement easing restrictions for American companies would not automatically resolve European vulnerabilities.
Taiwan adds another European concern
Taiwan is also part of the Washington discussions.
According to the Chinese government’s account of Thursday’s talks, Xi pressed Trump over the Taiwan question, calling on Washington to oppose Taiwanese independence and handle relations with Taipei “with prudence”.
The EU does not have the United States’ security relationship with Taiwan, but Brussels has repeatedly stated that stability in the Taiwan Strait is a European interest.
During EU–China security consultations in March, the EU raised tensions in the Taiwan Strait directly with Beijing, alongside Russia’s war against Ukraine and security in the wider Indo-Pacific.
The economic implications are equally important. Taiwan occupies a central position in global semiconductor production, while the waters surrounding it form part of some of the world’s busiest commercial routes.
A bilateral summit with European consequences
The Trump–Xi summit therefore exposes a broader problem for the EU.
Brussels wants China to exert greater pressure on Russia while simultaneously restricting Chinese companies accused of assisting Moscow. It wants continued trade with China while reducing strategic dependencies on Chinese minerals and manufacturing. And it wants stability around Taiwan while having relatively limited influence over the security relationship between Washington, Beijing and Taipei.
The elaborate Washington reception demonstrates the importance Trump attaches to direct engagement with Xi. For Europe, the substance of those talks matters more than the ceremony.
If Washington chooses economic accommodation with Beijing, Brussels will have to establish how far American pressure on China over Russian energy will actually extend. If trade tensions intensify instead, Europe could again find itself exposed to decisions on tariffs, technology and critical materials taken largely between the world’s two largest economies.
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