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US presidential trips abroad have typically been an chance to demonstrate the power of the US on the global scene. Donald Trump's multi-day swing through East Asia, conversely, has been a demonstration of the authority of the president – but also, at moments, of that influence's constraints.

Trump's stops in Malaysia, Japan and Korea over the course of the initial days were an exercise in catering to a occasionally mercurial American president. It was an recognition that the president, with the signature of a document, could introduce taxes and additional actions that have the capacity to devastate the financial systems of export-dependent states.

His sit-down with China's president Xi on the final day, nevertheless, was a completely different scenario.

It was a session of equals on the international scene, where the stakes for both nations – for their economies, for their international prestige, for the welfare of their populations – were immense.

With Beijing, the US leader may flick his authority, but these moves come with consequences. They carry a cost.

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For the initial phase, Trump's most recent venture into world politics was smooth sailing.

Each destination was marked by a mix of traditional economic talks – deals made under the pressure of the president's "mutual" taxes – and individual concessions that at moments approached the deferential.

In the Malaysian stop, Trump gained access to essential resources and made headway toward concluding commercial deals with ASEAN countries. He also presided over a treaty that should reduce territorial disputes between Thailand and Cambodia – the kind of "peace deal" the American president enjoys to tout.

In the Japanese leg, Trump's helicopter flew past a famous structure illuminated red, white and blue – with a summit in gilded.

Recently chosen Prime Minister the Japanese leader outlined $half-trillion in Tokyo's funding in the America and offered the American president a present of a quarter-thousand cherry trees for the United States' semiquincentennial, and a sports gear and case that was owned by the late leader, the assassinated past head who bonded with Trump in his first term.

She also became the newest international head to nominate Trump for his long-sought peace award.

Not to be outdone, Korea greeted Trump with artillery firing a 21-gun salute and a armed forces orchestra that played the leader's song and the Village People song – the band song that has evolved into a presidential event anthem.

Leader Lee held an "honour ceremony" for Trump during which he gave the US president his nation's highest medal and a copy of an traditional ruler's coronet.

Lunch with Lee included a "Diplomat's Sweet" of gold-covered chocolate squares. Later that day, the South Koreans served Trump premium vintage at an private meal in Trump's honor with half-dozen international heads present at the APEC summit.

In the America, the president may be the focus of "No Kings" demonstrations by US citizens who disapprove of his limit-pushing extensions of leader's control, but during his Asian swing he was received as nobility.

And like the kings of history, Trump came to the Korean nation demanding contribution – in the shape of $200bn in monetary contributions, $twenty billion a annually, from Korea to the United States, to be used at the direction of the president's leadership. Consent on the details of those payments helped ensure that the tariff rate on South Korean goods to the US would fall from twenty-five percent to under twenty percent.

The central moment of Trump's Asia trip occurred in its final hours, however, as he encountered the Chinese leader.

There, the power dynamic between counterparts of the planet's biggest economic powers was markedly different than the interactions the president had with his foreign counterparts in earlier stops.

Not present were typical pomp and the spectacle. No armed forces orchestras, no protocol units, without carefully crafted meal plans celebrating shared goodwill. By contrast, the pair of counterparts and their top aides sat across a extended light-colored discussion surface in a plain armed forces facility just near the airstrip of the city of Busan's air transport hub.

It was possibly a demonstration of the significant risks that when Trump exchanged greetings with the Chinese leader in the Korean city, he looked