Trump and Xi wrapped three days of talks in Washington this week covering trade, artificial intelligence and Taiwan, and the joint framing both governments gave reporters listed discussion, not settlement, on the tariff track. That distinction lands first on the PBOC's open-market desk, which has run its seven-day reverse repo rate unchanged since June precisely because the People's Bank did not want to commit liquidity easing to a trade outcome that Washington had not yet signed. Or, more precisely, the desk's caution was never about the tariff rate itself so much as about the currency path a tariff resolution would have let it manage: a signed deal was the one input that would have told Beijing whether the yuan needed room to strengthen against the dollar or room to absorb another round of duties.

That input did not arrive. Mei Chen's filing today on the summit's Taiwan silence covers the security half of that same three-day readout; the trade half left Premier Li Qiang's economic working group exactly where it stood in March, running the liquidity tools it already has (the reverse repo rate, the medium-term lending facility rate, the reserve requirement ratio) without the one variable, a tariff resolution, that would have let it commit to easing on a fixed calendar. The PBOC's Monetary Policy Committee meets in November to set the tone for its quarterly report, and it will do so having gained nothing from Washington to base an easing call on. The desk that was waiting for a number now has to act without one.