Video highlights

The summit has so far produced little concrete result, despite a framing that called the relationship a 'constructive strategic' one. He called Trump 'transactions based and deal focused,' with no strategic bone in his body.

Roach questioned why Xi would want a deal with someone likely to renege on it, citing Canada, Ukraine and NATO as examples of Trump's unreliable commitments.

He asked whether Trump can be trusted to hold firm on commitments with any major country at all.

Roach asked why Xi did not bring a group of Chinese business leaders to Washington, noting that Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jamie Dimon all attended at the White House.

The summits so far include one in Beijing in May, a recent one, a possible trilateral meeting with Putin at APEC in about three weeks, and Mar-a-Lago in December.

Xi is still worried about the Chinese economy, and time is the only thing he can get out of the next few summits. He does not think Xi feels the reciprocal camaraderie Trump describes, and says Chinese leaders are realistic about the limited progress possible with an unpredictable counterpart.

Beyond an agreed AI hotline, the summit produced little AI development, and the two sides held different narratives, especially on the doomsday scenarios raised by frontier AI leaders.

Any restriction on advanced technology, Roach argued, only pushes China to go its own way and accelerates its drive for self-reliance. He pointed to Huawei and its subsidiaries already building processing technology to support DeepSeek's open architecture.

His conclusion: the US cannot stop China, and each new restriction increases China's incentive to go its own way.

The US is in a defensive posture, trying to limit China's advance. He expects a deal by the end of the year, because Trump cannot walk away from four summits with a friend without a deal.

The deal is lousy for what the US gets on trade, AI and other meaningful issues, but Trump will still call it a deal, and for Trump a deal is success.

The polls are unanimous that the midterms look as close to a wave outcome as Roach has seen, though he is wary of calling a wave in the Senate. The House, he said, looks pretty much a done deal, and Mike Johnson will be looking for a new job.

The polls have burned pollsters before, he cautioned.

Roach called a possible trilateral summit of Xi, Putin and Trump, with Ukraine, European leaders and Zelenskyy absent, appalling. He called it appalling.

Congress passed a secondary sanctions bill, named in Lindsey Graham's honor, that would have put teeth into Russia's war machine, but Trump signed an executive order countermanding the legislation he had signed only recently.