It was both painful and humiliating to watch media coverage of U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent visit to Beijing, because it amply demonstrated America’s decline as a great power relative to China.

Prior to the summit, expectations were very low: Trump was in a weakened position, beset by inflation and declining popularity, while seeking China’s help in getting out of the Iran trap he has created for himself. Chinese leader Xi Jinping, on the other hand, had forced Trump to back down in his trade war the year before, with China showing strong export growth in the face of Washington’s weak response.

And so it was. Trump returned to Washington with little to show for his visit: only two agreements on opening Chinese markets to U.S. products and no political help in the Middle East. China did agree to buy 200 Boeing aircraft (fewer than expected), but it has failed to follow through on similar announcements in the past. The White House also claimed that China has agreed to purchase $17 billion of agricultural products, but China has not confirmed this. It did not prevent Trump from claiming that they “did great trade deals” and that the meeting was “a great success.”