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American leader visits abroad have traditionally been an chance to demonstrate the power of the US on the world stage. Trump's multi-day tour through Asian nations, on the other hand, has been a show of the power of Trump – but also, at moments, of that authority's boundaries.

Trump's stops in Malaysia, Japan and South Korea over the course of the opening phase were an display in satisfying a occasionally mercurial American president. It was an acknowledgement that the president, with the signature of a pen, could enact tariffs and additional actions that have the capacity to devastate the economies of export-dependent countries.

His sit-down with China's president Xi on the last day, however, was something entirely different.

It was a meeting of equals on the global stage, where the risks for the two powers – for their financial health, for their global standing, for the welfare of their citizens – were enormous.

With the Chinese, the president may wave his pen, but those steps come with consequences. They carry a price.

• The US president hails 'impressive' talks with Xi but no agreement reached
• The Chinese president and the US leader find brief pause as Beijing adopts strategic patience

For the opening segment, the president's recent entry into global diplomacy was uneventful.

Each visit was characterized by a blend of standard trade negotiations – agreements made under the threat of Trump's "mutual" tariffs – and individual concessions that at points approached the obsequious.

In the Malaysian stop, the president secured access to critical minerals and made progress toward completing commercial deals with south-east Asian nations. He also presided over a pact that should ease frontier issues between Thailand and Cambodia – the type of "peace deal" the US leader enjoys to highlight.

In the Japanese leg, Trump's official aircraft soared near a landmark tower illuminated American colors – with a top in gilded.

Newly elected Prime Minister the Japanese leader outlined $half-trillion in Japan's financial commitments in the US and offered the US leader a offering of two hundred fifty flowering trees for America's semiquincentennial, and a golf equipment and carrier that was owned by the late leader, the assassinated past head who bonded with the president in his previous administration.

She also became the newest international head to suggest Trump for his much-desired peace award.

Matching the effort, the Korean government greeted Trump with cannons performing a honor salute and a armed forces orchestra that performed Hail to the Chief and the classic tune – the musical group tune that has turned into a political gathering standard.

President Lee held an "honour ceremony" for Trump during which he presented the president his country's premier award and a replica of an traditional ruler's coronet.

Midday meal with the Korean leader contained a "Peacemaker's Dessert" of gold-encrusted chocolate squares. Later that day, the hosts offered the president vineyard wine at an private meal in the president's honour with six global figures attending the APEC conference.

In the America, Trump may be the focus of "Anti-Monarchy" demonstrations by US citizens who disapprove of his boundary-testing increases of executive authority, but during his regional swing he was handled as royalty.

And like the monarchs of old, the president arrived in Korea requesting contribution – in the shape of $two hundred billion in financial transfers, $20bn a per year, from South Korea to the United States, to be used at the direction of Trump's administration. Agreement on the conditions of those contributions contributed to that the tariff rate on South Korean goods to the US would decrease from a quarter to fifteen percent.

The central moment of the president's Asian tour came in its concluding phase, nevertheless, as he sat down with the Chinese leader.

There, the power dynamic between heads of the world's two largest economies was markedly different than the meetings the president had with his overseas colleagues in previous days.

Missing were typical ceremony and the pageantry. Lacking service ensembles, without ceremonial troops, missing carefully crafted meal plans marking bilateral friendship. Rather, the two leaders and their top aides sat across a extended light-colored meeting furniture in a unremarkable service structure just adjacent to the landing strip of the southern port's international airport.

It was possibly a indication of the significant risks that when the president made contact with the Chinese leader in the southern port, he looked