President Donald Trump said the US and China had made “tremendous strides” at a summit with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, who touted two more potential meetings between them this year.
“We've made great strides, very positive for both countries,” Trump said Friday as he and First Lady Melania Trump hosted Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, at the White House for tea on the last day of the summit.
Xi said the relationship between the countries would be a “constructive one of strategic stability,” highlighting a summit that was full of pomp and ceremony but with little to show beyond keeping relations between the world's two largest economies largely on track. He thanked his hosts for doing everything “to the highest order of perfection.”
The Chinese leader looked ahead to future meetings with Trump at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in China in November and a gathering Group of 20 leaders in the US the following month.
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“I do welcome the president and the first lady to visit China,” Xi said.
The two leaders and their wives will now visit the National Archives, a building that houses some of the most consequential US records, such as the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, before Xi departs Washington later Friday.
When they greeted their guests earlier in the morning, Trump ignored shouted questions from reporters, including about whether he had urged China to stop buying oil from Iran — a major point of contention as the US looks to ramp up economic pressure on the Islamic Republic.
The only major agreement between the two nations was a two-month truce extension that takes the trade deal with China into 2027. Officials also discussed ways to manage tensions over artificial intelligence as the race to dominate the industry emerges as a centerpiece of the US-China rivalry. Even so, Trump had insisted the technology needs few guardrails and seemed more preoccupied with his idea for rebranding AI as “super intelligence.”
Instead, the lasting impressions of Xi's second state visit to America will largely be of the lavish and warm welcome Trump threw for the leader of a country that poses a military and economic challenge to Washington.
Trump rolled out the red carpet for Xi, welcoming him on the tarmac and treating him to military bands, flyovers and an opulent state dinner packed with titans from Wall Street and Silicon Valley.
The US president clearly relished the visit, showing Xi changes he's made to the White House, including a paved-over Rose Garden that hosted a military review and his “Presidential Walk of Fame.” In a rare candid moment, the Communist Party chief was seen on camera laughing in front of a portrait of an autopen intended to mock former President Joe Biden.
Trump also flaunted a new White House helipad and even took Xi, a foreign leader, inside the presidential helicopter, Marine One. He told reporters that Xi “loved good granite” and was “an expert on stone.”
Trump's efforts to ban three media outlets from the White House affected the summit's coverage. Major TV outlets had refused to broadcast events until CNN was restored to the pool that manage covering presidential events. Chinese state media and the White House video stream became almost the only ways for viewers to watch live on Thursday, with many American TV screens missing the action.
On Friday, major television networks resumed their coverage of Trump, showing video of the White House tea. A CNN spokesperson said the network had been allowed back into the pool and would provide coverage of the National Archives visit.
Meetings between Trump and Xi on Thursday lasted under two hours, sandwiched between speeches and spectacle. It was unclear how much progress was made on some of the major irritants in the relationship. The US has expressed concerns China is not fully honoring an agreement to ease the flow of rare earth minerals crucial to industrial production, while Beijing has bristled at restrictions on semiconductors and other cutting-edge technology.
On Taiwan, however, Xi urged the US to formally “oppose” its independence, an explicit call for Trump to change US policy on the self-ruled island Beijing sees as its own territory. China has been ratcheting up pressure on the US over the chip hub it seeks to isolate on the world stage.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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