The US President's East Asia Tour Includes Deals, Knee-Bending and a Insightful Closing Encounter

American leader visits abroad have traditionally been an opportunity to showcase the influence of the US on the world stage. The president's five-day tour through East Asia, by contrast, has been a show of the authority of the president – but also, at points, of that power's boundaries.

Trump's stops in Malaysia, Japan and South Korea over the span of the opening phase were an exercise in catering to a sometimes unpredictable president. It was an admission that the president, with the stroke of a pen, could enact duties and additional actions that have the ability to damage the markets of export-dependent states.

His meeting with China's president Xi Jinping on Thursday, though, was a completely different scenario.

It was a session of counterparts on the global stage, where the risks for each country – for their financial health, for their international prestige, for the welfare of their people – were enormous.

With the Chinese, the president may wave his authority, but such actions involve consequences. They come with a price.

• Trump describes 'amazing' encounter with the Chinese leader but no pact reached
• The Chinese president and Trump reach temporary truce as Beijing adopts strategic patience

For the first four days, Trump's recent venture into world politics was successful.

Each destination was marked by a mix of conventional trade negotiations – arrangements made under the threat of Trump's "mutual" taxes – and special treatment that at points approached the obsequious.

In the Malaysian stop, Trump gained access to key materials and made advances toward completing commercial deals with ASEAN countries. He also presided over a pact that should reduce frontier issues between Thailand and Cambodia – the type of "truce" the president enjoys to promote.

In Japan, the president's Marine One soared near a Tokyo Tower displayed US flag colors – with a peak in gilded.

Recently chosen Prime Minister the Japanese leader detailed $550 billion in Japan's financial commitments in the United States and presented the US leader a offering of a quarter-thousand cherry trees for the United States' 250th anniversary, and a golf equipment and bag that came from the late leader, the murdered ex-leader who connected with the president in his previous administration.

She also became the latest overseas counterpart to suggest Trump for his long-sought Nobel Peace Prize.

Matching the effort, the Korean government greeted the president with artillery firing a 21-gun salute and a armed forces orchestra that played Hail to the Chief and YMCA – the musical group song that has become a Trump rally anthem.

Leader the Korean president held an "recognition ritual" for the US leader during which he awarded the American leader his nation's premier award and a model of an historical royal headpiece.

Lunch with the Korean leader featured a "Peacemaker's Dessert" of gold-encrusted brownies. Later that day, the Koreans served Trump fine beverage at an intimate dinner in the president's honour with multiple global figures participating in the APEC summit.

In the America, Trump may be the focus of "No Kings" rallies by US citizens who disapprove of his boundary-testing extensions of executive authority, but during his Asian visit he was handled as monarchy.

And like the rulers of ancient times, Trump visited Korea seeking payment – in the guise of $200 billion in financial transfers, $20bn a year, from South Korea to the US, to be invested at the guidance of the president's administration. Approval on the conditions of those transfers helped ensure that the tariff rate on Korean exports to the United States would drop from 25% to 15%.

The main event of Trump's Asian tour came in its last moments, though, as he encountered Xi.

At that location, the authority balance between heads of the world's two largest economies was markedly different than the exchanges the president had with his international peers in prior visits.

Missing were all the pageantry and the pageantry. Without any armed forces orchestras, absent protocol units, no carefully crafted dining selections honoring mutual national affection. Instead, the two leaders and their top aides positioned themselves across a extended light-colored negotiating table in a unremarkable service structure just adjacent to the landing strip of the southern port's international airport.

It was likely a reflection of the major consequences that when Trump shook hands with Xi in the Korean city, he seemed