According to an article in, I think, Politico, Trump is waiting for Xi to call him directly to make a deal, but Xi won’t bite. Why not?
For several reasons. First, Xi depends on the support of nationalists at home, so he doesn’t want to make the first move, particularly when it is obvious that Trump is trying to bully him. Second, as the article notes, Xi doesn’t want to be part of an unscripted scene similar to the Zelensky episode. But most importantly, in spite of what Trump probably thinks, Xi is not Putin or Kim; he is the head of a bureaucratic state with a fixed ideology, not an omnipotent fascist leader who can change positions on a dime. As I’ve noted before, Xi is bound by Xi Jinping thought; Putin, like Trump, can reverse himself any time he likes.
My guess is that Trump wants to deal directly with Xi, as he did with Kim, because he wants to discuss an uncomfortably broad geopolitical deal that may even include spheres of influence. Xi and the bureaucracy don’t want any part of that kind of surprise, just as the Soviet and American establishments didn’t embrace Reagan’s impromptu nuclear proposal to Gorbachev in the 1980s.