National Robotics Push Caught In Delayed Trump-xi Meeting

The White House is weighing how aggressively to target China’s booming robotics industry, a decision that now hinges on how President Donald Trump leaves his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping next month.

If the meeting hardens Trump against Xi, the administration could impose strict trade restrictions or tariffs on robots focusing on national security risks. But if the summit extends the current trade detente, as the administration hopes, the strategy could take a softer tone towards China’s robotics dominance.

For now, the White House wants to avoid inflaming tensions with Beijing ahead of the summit, said a Trump administration official, in line with the administration’s effort to tread carefully in managing its fragile truce with China.

That has tied the future of the U.S. robotics industry to the administration’s broader geopolitical aims.

Robots are key to bringing AI into manufacturing since they can offset labor shortages and make factories more productive. If China continues to automate faster, industry leaders warn, the gap in manufacturing and defense production could widen.

Executives had initially expected a national robotics strategy, which could include an executive order, to be released in the first half of the year. But the summit — originally scheduled for March and delayed to May due to the war in Iran — has scrambled those expectations.

“All of the policies that specifically mention China are on pause because of the need to create some goodwill and space ahead of the meeting,” said a robotics industry executive involved in Washington policy discussions and granted anonymity to speak candidly.

The U.S. robotics industry is looking for the administration to take aggressive steps to help them compete with China. These could include tax incentives to spur adoption, government purchases of robots for defense, logistics and warehousing, federal support for workforce training, public-private partnerships and other guidelines to accelerate deployment.

“No matter how the meeting goes, the underlying facts remain the same,” said Michael Robbins, president and CEO of the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International. “China is undertaking a massive, coordinated campaign to win this industry by muscling out the U.S. and other Western countries – we’re already falling behind, so the policy actions shouldn’t change.”

Despite the delay, parts of the administration’s trade agenda are moving forward. The Department of Commerce is pressing ahead with a national security review of imports of robotics-related materials with recommendations expected to be delivered to the president by the end of the month. The White House could then decide on whether to impose tariffs or other import restrictions.

Separately, changes to national security tariffs on metals could also ripple through the robotics supply chain. The revised framework applies 15 percent tariffs — rising to 25 percent in 2028 — on the full value of derivative steel and aluminum products, increasing cost for equipment like industrial robots.

“The belief is that there's a window right now where we can still compete, and we need to seize the window while it's open,” said a robotics CEO who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “It’s going to close if we don't do something about it.”

China installs far more industrial robots each year than the U.S. — roughly 10 times as many in 2024, according to the International Federation of Robotics — fueled by aggressive state subsidies, coordinated industrial policy and a tightly integrated supply chain.

Beijing has also made robotics a pillar of its manufacturing strategy through government financing, state-backed purchasing commitments, subsidies for factories that adopt robots, public-sector contracts and other measures, all to accelerate deployment. China’s National Development and Reform Commission has a $1 trillion yuan (roughly $140 billion) fund dedicated to AI and robotics startups — a scale of support that exceeds other countries.

Executives point to sectors like drones, where early U.S. leadership faded as Chinese competitors scaled up, as a cautionary example.

Industry leaders also warn that many U.S. robotics firms are relying on Chinese-built hardware that could make them vulnerable to supply-chain pressures.

A lack of domestic alternatives has created what some describe as a “hardware lottery,” where access to tools dictates the pace and direction of innovation — raising questions about whether the next generation of U.S. robotics is being built on a fragile foundation.

That backdrop has fueled early expectations in Washington that the Trump administration would move quickly to clamp down on Chinese robotics — expectations that have so far failed to materialize.

“There were a lot of assumptions which were wrong — that this China stuff was going to be low-hanging fruit and taken care of in the first 100 days,” said an executive involved in robotics policy discussions who was granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. “The way it's played out has been very different than the way a lot of people in D.C. assumed, but it’s been a deliberate process.”

Even amid that urgency, some executives see room for cooperation alongside competition.

“I think it's positive for the world's superpowers to be talking to each other,” said Jeff Cardenas, CEO of Apptronik, which develops AI-powered humanoid robots for industrial and commercial use. “There are opportunities for us to be working together in areas that are going to be critical to the future — it's anyone's guess for what comes out of that meeting, but I’m optimistic.”

The goal, executives say, is to build a durable U.S. robotics base that can compete globally. Even as geopolitics shapes the tone of policy, they argue that sustained investment in talent, capital and demand will ultimately determine whether U.S. companies gain ground.

A robotics CEO, who attended a roundtable with administration officials last month and was granted anonymity to discuss the closed-door meeting, said policymakers are operating on compressed 30-, 60- and 90-day timelines, too slow when it comes to robotics.

“China has a national strategy, they have the most powerful manufacturing engine in the world and they’re investing hundreds of billions of dollars — what is our answer to that?” the executive said. “Our answer can’t be nothing.”