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Presidential journeys overseas have traditionally been an opportunity to showcase the strength of the United States on the world stage. The president's week-long tour through East Asia, conversely, has been a show of the authority of the president – but also, at moments, of that influence's constraints.

The president's visits in Malaysia, Japan and Korea over the duration of the opening phase were an exercise in satisfying a occasionally volatile American president. It was an acknowledgement that the leader, with the signature of a document, could impose duties and other measures that have the capacity to damage the financial systems of trade-reliant countries.

His meeting with Beijing's head Xi on Thursday, though, was a completely different scenario.

It was a meeting of counterparts on the world platform, where the stakes for the two powers – for their financial health, for their world reputation, for the well-being of their citizens – were enormous.

With the Chinese, the US leader may flick his power, but these moves entail consequences. They involve a price.

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For the opening segment, the president's latest foray into world politics was successful.

Each stop was marked by a combination of standard trade negotiations – deals made under the shadow of the president's "mutual" tariffs – and personal accommodations that at points bordered on the subservient.

In the Malaysian stop, the president secured rights to key materials and made headway toward concluding economic agreements with regional partners. He also presided over a pact that should reduce territorial disputes between Thailand and Cambodia – the type of "peace agreement" the US leader prefers to tout.

In the Japanese leg, Trump's helicopter soared near a famous structure illuminated red, white and blue – with a top in gilded.

Freshly appointed Head Takaichi detailed $550bn in Japanese investments in the United States and offered the American president a present of a quarter-thousand sakura trees for America's semiquincentennial, and a golf club and case that belonged to former Prime Minister Abe, the assassinated ex-leader who developed ties with Trump in his first term.

She also became the latest foreign leader to suggest Trump for his much-desired peace award.

Matching the effort, South Korea received the president with artillery performing a honor salute and a armed forces orchestra that performed Hail to the Chief and YMCA – the band tune that has become a political gathering theme.

President Lee Jae Myung held an "recognition ritual" for Trump during which he presented the president his country's top honor and a copy of an historical royal headpiece.

Lunch with the Korean leader featured a "Peacemaker's Dessert" of gold-encrusted brownies. Later that day, the hosts provided Trump premium vintage at an exclusive gathering in the president's honor with six international heads attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference summit.

In the United States, Trump may be the focus of "Anti-Authority" rallies by US citizens who oppose his authority-expanding extensions of presidential power, but during his regional swing he was handled as nobility.

And like the monarchs of old, Trump visited Korea requesting payment – in the form of $two hundred billion in monetary contributions, $20 billion a year, from Korea to the United States, to be allocated at the guidance of the president's leadership. Agreement on the terms of those transfers helped ensure that the duty level on Korean exports to the United States would decrease from 25% to fifteen percent.

The main event of the president's Asia trip came in its concluding phase, nevertheless, as he encountered Xi.

There, the authority balance between leaders of the world's two largest economies was noticeably different than the meetings Trump had with his foreign counterparts in earlier stops.

Absent were typical ceremony and the display. Lacking armed forces orchestras, absent protocol units, missing thoughtfully prepared meal plans celebrating bilateral friendship. Rather, the two leaders and their top aides positioned themselves across a large pale negotiating table in a plain military building just near the airstrip of Busan's global terminal.

It was likely a demonstration of the high stakes that when Trump exchanged greetings with Xi in the Korean city, he appeared