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Little was expected of President Donald Trump’s summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and even less was actually accomplished.

Trump met the Communist Party chairman’s plane on a red carpet, which he also did for Vladimir Putin last year (and which no president had done for any other leader since John F. Kennedy greeted U.K. Prime Minister Harold Macmillan at Andrews Air Force Base in 1962). He staged a flyover with B-2 bombers and F-22 stealth fighters as a further sign of respect, then threw a state dinner, and gave Xi a tour of the White House’s new helipad and ballroom construction (which Trump, the self-described builder, must have seen as an offer of special honor).

In return, Xi announced he was giving the Atlanta Zoo two panda bears and extended the U.S.–China trade-war truce, which was about to expire, by two months.

Many contentious issues face the two countries—the status of Taiwan, the war in Iran, nuclear weapons, space weapons, and, of course, A.I. The two leaders may have discussed these topics (they must have talked about something besides granite for three hours), but nothing—no resolutions, no agendas for the future, not even the creation of bilateral working groups—emerged from the meeting.

For most American presidents, summits, especially with powerful leaders, are carefully planned affairs. Senior aides on both sides meet well ahead of time to lay out issues to discuss, outline points of agreement and discord, draft announcements that would impart at least the illusion of........

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