Trump’s visit to China, America’s primary strategic and economic competitor, was his first since 2017. The trip aimed to achieve concrete outcomes to bolster his declining approval ratings ahead of the crucial midterm elections.
The summit featured grand receptions with soldiers, lavish banquets, and private tours of a secret garden. Trump frequently praised his host, commenting on his warmth and stature.
“It’s been an incredible visit. I think a lot of good has come of it,” Trump remarked to Xi during their final meeting at the Zhongnanhai complex, a former imperial garden where Chinese leaders’ offices are located. They dined on lobster balls and Kung Pao scallops.
Just before Friday’s meeting, China’s foreign ministry issued a blunt statement expressing its frustration with the United States and Israel’s war with Iran.
“This conflict, which should never have happened, has no reason to continue,” the ministry stated, adding that China supports efforts to reach a peace deal in a war that has severely impacted energy supplies and the global economy.
At Zhongnanhai, Trump noted that he and Xi had discussed Iran and felt “very similar,” though Xi did not comment.
Trump was expected to urge China to leverage its influence with Iran to broker a deal. However, analysts doubt Xi’s willingness to pressure Tehran or withdraw support for its military, given Iran’s strategic importance to Beijing as a counterbalance to the US.
A brief US summary of Thursday’s talks emphasized the leaders’ shared interest in reopening the Strait of Hormuz off Iran, through which a fifth of global oil and gas once flowed, and Xi’s apparent interest in American oil purchases to reduce dependence on the Middle East.
“What’s notable is that there’s no Chinese commitment to do anything specific with regards to Iran,” said Patricia Kim, a foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution.
BOEING SHARES SLIDE ON UNDERWHELMING DEAL
US officials mentioned agreements to sell farm goods and progress on establishing mechanisms for managing future trade, with both sides expected to identify $30 billion of non-sensitive goods.
Details of the deals were scarce, and there was no breakthrough on selling Nvidia’s advanced H200 AI chips to China, despite CEO Jensen Huang’s last-minute addition to the trip.
Trump told Fox News that China had agreed to order 200 Boeing jets, marking its first purchase of US-made commercial jets in nearly a decade, yet this fell short of the roughly 500 expected by markets, leading to a more than 4% drop in Boeing shares.
“For the market, the summit can be strategically reassuring while underwhelming in substance,” commented Chim Lee, senior China analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Chinese stocks dropped on Friday as the summit between the world’s two largest economies produced few deals to excite investors.
The summit’s primary achievement might be maintaining a fragile trade truce established during the leaders’ last meeting in October, when Trump suspended high tariffs on Chinese goods, and Xi refrained from restricting vital rare earth supplies.
The decision on whether to extend the truce beyond its expiration later this year has not yet been made, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, accompanying Trump, told Bloomberg TV on Friday.
Such an extension would be “the most basic benchmark” for the summit, according to the Brookings’ Kim.
STARK WARNING ON TAIWAN
Xi warned Trump that mishandling Taiwan, the democratically governed island claimed by Beijing, could lead to conflict, delivering a sharp, though not unprecedented, warning during an otherwise amicable summit.
Taiwan, located just 80km off China’s coast, has long been a point of tension, with Beijing unwilling to rule out military force to gain control, while the US is legally obligated to provide Taiwan with means of self-defense.
“US policy on the issue of Taiwan is unchanged as of today,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio, traveling with Trump, told NBC News, adding that the Chinese “always raise it … we always make clear our position and we move on.”
Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung expressed gratitude to the United States on Friday for its continued support.
Rubio mentioned that Trump discussed with Xi the situation of Hong Kong’s most vocal China critic, media tycoon Jimmy Lai, who was sentenced to 20 years in February in the Asian financial hub’s largest national security case.
Hong Kong affairs are considered an internal matter for China, the foreign ministry has previously stated when asked about Lai, who denies all charges against him.
While the summit may not have resulted in numerous deals, both sides celebrated a more stable footing in the relationship Xi described as the most important in the world.
“We must make it work and never mess it up,” Xi stated at Thursday’s state banquet.
