Chinese President Xi Jinping spent Thursday in Washington for his first visit to the American capital since 2015, in a day built around both symbolism and substance.
President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump greeted Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday evening with a red carpet welcome, the first time in six decades that a sitting president had personally met a visiting leader at the base. Thursday's arrival ceremony on the South Lawn included a military review, a gift exchange and a flyover, followed by a bilateral meeting between the two leaders and, in the evening, a state dinner in the East Room. The guest list for the dinner included prominent American technology executives, among them Apple's Tim Cook, Nvidia's Jensen Huang and OpenAI's Sam Altman, along with a smaller Chinese business delegation than had initially been expected.
Underneath the pageantry, the two governments used the visit to manage a relationship that has been tense over trade, technology and Taiwan even as the two leaders have now met several times over the past year, including during Trump's own visit to Beijing in May. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday evening that Washington and Beijing had agreed to extend their temporary trade truce, which had lowered US tariffs and paused China's export controls on rare earths and other critical minerals. That arrangement had been due to expire in mid-November.
Artificial intelligence was also high on the agenda. The two countries discussed a new "notification mechanism" that would have each side alert the other to any AI-related incident serious enough to threaten national security, reflecting shared unease about a technology both are racing to develop. The war in Iran and its wider regional fallout also came up in discussions, given China's longstanding ties to Tehran, though it remained unclear whether the summit would do anything to help ease that conflict; Trump has said he does not believe Chinese involvement is necessary to resolve it.
Officials on both sides are expected to release more detail on the length and terms of the extended trade truce in the coming days, along with any further steps on the proposed AI notification arrangement.
Did Trump and Xi reach a new trade deal?
Not a new deal, but the two governments agreed to extend their existing tariff and export-control truce, which had been due to expire in mid-November.
Was Taiwan discussed?
Yes, Taiwan was one of several long-standing points of tension raised alongside trade and artificial intelligence, according to reporting on the summit's agenda.