Unfortunately for the US President, he lacks the political credibility, both at home and abroad, to accomplish any of these goals.
During a three-day visit to China starting tomorrow, Trump will again try to persuade Xi to use China's leverage with North Korea to change the Kim regime's belligerent behaviour and to back Pyongyang away from continued military threats.
China, he will argue, is the critical supplier of food, fuel, and cash to North Korea and is the only country that can force Kim to shift course.
Trump will again offer to improve US-China commercial relations in exchange for this cooperation, and he will warn that China remains at much greater risk than the US if open conflict erupts on the Korean Peninsula.
In his first two stops, Japan and South Korea, Trump is trying to assure allies that Washington can eliminate the threat that North Korea poses to their security.
In Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines, Trump will try to convince his counterparts that the US remains committed to trade and investment in the region despite his decision to withdraw the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal.
The US President would have pressed Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe yesterday to work towards a new US-Japan trade agreement, even as Abe works to move TPP forward without the US.
Trump wants to reassure Abe, South Korea's Moon Jae In, the leaders he meets at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting in the Philippines that the US remains committed to counter-balancing the expansion of China's influence throughout the region.
So why will Trump fail to achieve any of these goals?
Trump and Abe have a built a strong personal relationship, but their interests, particularly on trade, are too divergent for progress to continue for long after the visit has ended.
And all the leaders he meets are well aware that Trump remains historically unpopular in the US, that he remains in open conflict with a significant percentage of Republican lawmakers and that he has demonstrated virtually no ability or willingness to work with opposition lawmakers to build the policy consensus on which successful foreign policy depends.
His counterparts also know that the investigation into possible collusion between his presidential campaign and the Russian Government has only just begun to create distractions for the President and those around him, and that Trump may soon have even less political capital than he does now.
They're also aware that US congressional elections in 2018 will move Trump further from policy planning towards political strategy, leading the President away from consistent messaging, particularly on relations with China, if he believes it will help his party win votes.
Asian leaders can also see that the US President is becoming politically weaker at a moment of historic strength and confidence for China's President. Xi was able to use the 19th Party Congress in Beijing to stack the leadership with reliable political allies who are aligned with both Xi's domestic reform agenda and with him personally.
The formal addition of Xi's governing principles to China's constitution reinforces the point that Xi has near absolute control of China's policy agenda. Xi's unwillingness to designate a successor suggests he could remain in power beyond his second five-year term - and that his influence will remain formidable even after he chooses to give up formal power.
The contrast in strength between the US and Chinese presidents could not be clearer, and every government in East and Southeast Asia will consider this reality when making plans on how to engage these two powers long after Trump's Asia tour is over.
- Ian Bremmer is the president of Eurasia Group and author of Superpower: Three Choices for America's Role in the World. He is on Twitter as @ianbremmer and on Facebook as Ian Bremmer.
