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American leader visits abroad have typically been an occasion to display the strength of the US on the global scene. Trump's five-day swing through eastern Asia, by contrast, has been a demonstration of the power of Trump – but also, at times, of that authority's limitations.

The president's visits in Malaysia, Japan and South Korea over the duration of the opening phase were an exercise in pleasing a occasionally unpredictable US leader. It was an acknowledgement that Trump, with the flick of a document, could enact taxes and other measures that have the capacity to damage the financial systems of trade-reliant states.

His meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the final day, though, was a distinct situation.

It was a meeting of equals on the world platform, where the consequences for each country – for their financial health, for their global standing, for the prosperity of their citizens – were enormous.

With Beijing, Trump may use his power, but such actions entail ramifications. They carry a price.

• Trump praises 'amazing' talks with Xi but no agreement reached
• The Chinese president and the US leader establish short-term ceasefire as China plays longer game

For the opening segment, the president's most recent entry into global diplomacy was successful.

Each stop was marked by a blend of conventional commercial discussions – agreements made under the shadow of Trump's "mutual" taxes – and individual concessions that at points bordered on the obsequious.

In the Malaysian stop, Trump secured access to critical minerals and made progress toward finalizing trade arrangements with ASEAN countries. He also led a treaty that should ease territorial disputes between Thailand and Cambodia – the type of "truce" the US leader prefers to highlight.

In Japan, the president's official aircraft soared near a Tokyo Tower lit red, white and blue – with a top in Trumpian gold.

Freshly appointed Prime Minister Sanai Takaichi described $550bn in Japan's financial commitments in the US and gave the president a present of two hundred fifty cherry trees for the United States' 250th birthday, and a sports gear and carrier that belonged to Shinzo Abe, the murdered ex-leader who developed ties with Trump in his previous administration.

She also became the latest international head to propose Trump for his highly-coveted international honor.

Keeping pace, South Korea received Trump with artillery performing a 21-gun salute and a military band that played the leader's song and YMCA – the band song that has become a political gathering theme.

Head Lee held an "honour ceremony" for Trump during which he presented the American leader his nation's premier award and a copy of an traditional ruler's coronet.

Midday meal with the Korean leader included a "Peacemaker's Dessert" of gilded chocolate squares. Later that day, the Koreans provided the president fine beverage at an private meal in the president's honor with multiple international heads participating in the APEC conference.

In the US, Trump may be the focus of "Anti-Monarchy" demonstrations by Americans who disapprove of his authority-expanding increases of leader's control, but during his East Asia swing he was handled as nobility.

And like the monarchs of ancient times, Trump visited the Korean nation demanding payment – in the shape of $two hundred billion in monetary contributions, $20 billion a year, from South Korea to the United States, to be allocated at the guidance of Trump's government. Consent on the terms of those payments assisted in that the tax percentage on Korean exports to the America would fall from 25% to 15%.

The main event of the president's Asia trip occurred in its final hours, nevertheless, as he encountered the Chinese leader.

There, the power dynamic between counterparts of the world's two largest economies was markedly different than the interactions Trump had with his foreign counterparts in earlier stops.

Not present were the usual pageantry and the spectacle. Without any armed forces orchestras, no ceremonial troops, without carefully crafted dining selections honoring bilateral friendship. Rather, the both heads and their top aides sat across a extended light-colored negotiating table in a plain armed forces facility just near the airstrip of the city of Busan's global terminal.

It was possibly a indication of the major consequences that when the president made contact with Xi in the Korean city, he appeared