Many Americans are breathing a sigh of relief after the meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping seemed to go well. US farmers, in particular, will be glad that major Chinese purchases of soybeans are going forward.

The benefits of this week’s agreement go far beyond farmers, since many small businesses in the US have a reliance on Chinese suppliers and so will benefit from the lowering of tariffs. Lest we forget, even American high-tech manufacturing, including major parts of the country’s military industrial complex, require a steady supply of Chinese rare earths. Lower tariffs, as well as an apparent pause on planned docking fees for Chinese ships, will also help US consumers by dampening inflation.

Yet if Trump can plausibly claim commercial and economic benefits from this meeting — and many are still reasonably questioning Trump’s tariff strategy as reckless and unnecessary — it must be said that no progress at all is evident on major security issues. To be sure, there is a logic to focusing on the “bread and butter” issues that impact the lives of Americans, but this meeting actually constitutes an opportunity missed. It’s concerning that none of the major issues that could bring Beijing and Washington to blows, whether Taiwan or North Korea or the South China Sea, were even broached.

As always, Taiwan is the Gordian Knot that haunts US-China relations. Trump declared on the plane journey home that “[Taiwan] never came up”. Yet, that may not be the most constructive approach to an issue that many strategists regard as the most dangerous in the world. It is the nightmare scenario of a catastrophic war that could even result in the use of nuclear weaponry. Trump has taken some tangible steps on this issue this year — including downgrading US-Taiwan defence talks and scrapping plans for American military aid to the island. But he could go much further in his “America First” logic to extricate the US from this volatile situation.

It’s notable that Xi saw fit to praise Trump’s peacemaking efforts around the world. It makes sense for the two superpowers to collaborate in stabilising the ever-fraught situation on the Korean Peninsula. Trump’s repeated attempts to arrange a meeting with Kim Jong-un are laudable — even if he did not succeed. A feasible short-term aim could be US-China cooperation to bring North Korean soldiers home from the Russia-Ukraine War, which would be a positive step toward de-escalation of that bloody conflict.

Similarly, the US and China need to talk urgently about the South China Sea. In that case, Washington could agree to decrease its military deployments to the Philippines if Beijing were willing to ease its harassment of Philippine vessels around the disputed shoals.

Of course, the big headline of the day was Trump’s announcement prior to the meeting that the US would resume nuclear testing. This caused significant confusion and fortunately did not derail the sensitive talks. However, it again suggests the imperative to set nuclear rivalry firmly on the agenda of US-China deliberations in the future. In that regard, it’s quite conceivable that Washington and Beijing can conclude agreements on nuclear arms limitations, as well as hold further dialogue on limiting the role of artificial intelligence in nuclear strategy.

The best news to come out of the brief Xi-Trump meeting concerned the possibility of a real summit next April when Trump is expected to visit China. This visit should make it possible for some genuine agreements on a range of delicate security matters as outlined above. Such efforts would constitute a stunning achievement for these would-be peacemakers.