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US presidential trips overseas have traditionally been an opportunity to demonstrate the strength of the United States on the global scene. The president's week-long swing through eastern Asia, conversely, has been a display of the clout of the president – but also, at points, of that influence's constraints.

The president's destinations in Malaysia, Japan and Korea over the duration of the first four days were an exercise in satisfying a at times mercurial American president. It was an acknowledgement that the president, with the stroke of a document, could enact duties and further steps that have the potential to devastate the financial systems of trade-reliant countries.

His meeting with Chinese leader Xi on the last day, nevertheless, was something entirely different.

It was a meeting of equals on the international scene, where the stakes for the two powers – for their financial health, for their international prestige, for the well-being of their citizens – were enormous.

With Beijing, the US leader may wave his power, but these moves come with ramifications. They involve a cost.

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For the first four days, Trump's recent foray into international relations was smooth sailing.

Each destination was punctuated by a mix of conventional economic talks – agreements made under the pressure of Trump's "equivalent" taxes – and individual concessions that at times verged on the subservient.

In Malaysia, the president secured access to essential resources and made advances toward completing trade arrangements with ASEAN countries. He also presided over a treaty that should reduce border tensions between Thailand and Cambodia – the type of "peace deal" the president enjoys to tout.

In Japan, the president's Marine One passed by a famous structure lit American colors – with a summit in golden.

Recently chosen Leader Sanai Takaichi outlined $half-trillion in Japan's financial commitments in the US and presented the president a present of a quarter-thousand sakura trees for the United States' 250th birthday, and a golf club and case that was owned by Shinzo Abe, the killed former prime minister who bonded with Trump in his previous administration.

She also became the most recent overseas counterpart to suggest the president for his long-sought international honor.

Keeping pace, South Korea received Trump with guns performing a traditional greeting and a armed forces orchestra that played the leader's song and the classic tune – the Village People anthem that has turned into a political gathering anthem.

Head Lee Jae Myung held an "award event" for Trump during which he gave the US president his nation's top honor and a model of an traditional ruler's coronet.

Midday meal with the Korean leader featured a "Diplomat's Sweet" of gilded chocolate squares. Later that day, the South Koreans offered Trump vineyard wine at an intimate dinner in Trump's honor with multiple international heads attending the regional summit meeting.

In the US, Trump may be the subject of "Anti-Authority" demonstrations by US citizens who reject his authority-expanding expansions of executive authority, but during his East Asia swing he was handled as monarchy.

And like the monarchs of ancient times, the president arrived in South Korea demanding contribution – in the form of $200 billion in monetary contributions, $twenty billion a per year, from the host nation to the America, to be allocated at the discretion of the president's administration. Approval on the details of those payments helped ensure that the tax percentage on host nation exports to the United States would fall from twenty-five percent to under twenty percent.

The main event of the president's Asia trip occurred in its last moments, nevertheless, as he encountered Xi.

There, the power dynamic between leaders of the global top two markets was markedly distinct than the exchanges the president had with his overseas colleagues in prior visits.

Not present were the usual ceremony and the pageantry. Lacking armed forces orchestras, no protocol units, missing meticulously designed menus marking mutual national affection. Instead, the both heads and their key staff were seated across a long white discussion surface in a nondescript service structure just near the airstrip of the city of Busan's global terminal.

It was perhaps a demonstration of the major consequences that when the president exchanged greetings with Xi in the Korean city, he appeared