Rachel Abrams

From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is The Daily.

For the first time in nearly a decade, President Trump will meet with China's President Xi Jinping in Beijing.

The meeting comes as Trump struggles to extract himself from the war with Iran and must now face off against China, the biggest threat to the U.S.

's dominance on everything from technology to trade.

Today, my colleague David Sanger explains what's likely to come of this meeting, and more pressingly, what will not.

It's Wednesday, May 13th.

David, we can hear you.

Where are you right now?

Okay, so now that you're in Beijing, can you set the scene for us a little bit, David?

Like, what is the significance of this meeting between President Trump and Xi Jinping?

OK, so I understand that Donald Trump is walking into these meetings much weaker than in 2017.

But as for the meeting itself, what do we know, if anything, about what they're actually going to be discussing?

Well, can we dive into that a little bit more?

Like when you say low-hanging fruit trade business, what are we talking about exactly?

Why beans, beef, and Boeing?

Right.

The president doesn't need to fly halfway across the world to negotiate something that China was just going to buy anyway.

But, you know, one thing that I did not hear you discuss in your discussion of the three Bs, David, was a pretty big T that we've been talking about on the show a lot, and that is tariffs.

Where does that fit into all of this?

OK, so China is going to want to push to get these cars into the U.S.