Trump meets Xi this week. Expect small steps on trade and AI, not breakthroughs.

President Trump meets later this week with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and observers are hoping for incremental progress on key issues.

But don't expect major policy breakthroughs.

On trade, there is a hope that the current truce between the US and China could be formally extended and some concessions negotiated, as Trump has delayed making new tariff provocations.

Meanwhile, on artificial intelligence, there is little expectation for any agreement around scaling back the rapid pace of developing frontier AI models but hopes for increased communication. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that preliminary talks had focused on a possible "notification mechanism between the two countries" around AI.

A senior US official confirmed that both AI and trade were on the agenda for the talks but made clear how much is up in the air, suggesting to reporters on Friday that no agreements had been reached in advance.

"We'll know more once the two leaders meet," the official said.

The week ahead could also be a ripe one for dealmaking. CEOs from both nations are set to be on hand, including a number of big names from the US side — from Jeff Bezos of Amazon ( AMZN ) to Elon Musk of Tesla ( TSLA ) and SpaceX ( SPCX ) to Jensen Huang of NVIDIA ( NVDA ) to Sam Altman of OpenAI ( OPAI.PVT ) and more.

Trump touted the planned state dinner and lamented that it would take place in the East Room of the White House (instead of in his still under construction ballroom). He said only about 125 people will be in attendance, calling it "a very tough ticket."

Yet for all the pomp and circumstance, there is a sense that less news might be made on the policy front.

"My shorthand for describing the current dynamic is managed stalemate," said Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former US diplomat.

Singleton says Trump is aiming to stage a visit that equals his own highly choreographed visit to Beijing earlier this year, and "the style will almost certainly be more impressive than the substance."

AI and trade are just a few issues to watch, with the talks between the world's two largest economies also expected to touch on the status of Taiwan, export curbs on rare earth minerals, the war in Iran, and recent currency developments around the Chinese Yuan after Secretary Bessent called the Chinese currency undervalued.

Three days of events are scheduled, beginning on Wednesday in Washington after Trump makes a trip to New York early this week for the UN General Assembly.