U.S. President Donald Trump participates in an welcome ceremony with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Thursday.Evan Vucci/Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump promised to reset ties with China and build them to “better than ever before,” as he met Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing on Thursday, for a hotly anticipated summit both sides hope will stabilize relations after a trade war launched by Washington nearly span out of control last year.
Mr. Trump was met by a smiling Mr. Xi outside the Great Hall of the People, near Tiananmen Square, where the two men inspected an honour guard of goose-stepping soldiers to the sounds of a brass band and cheering children.
Opening their meeting inside the building, which houses annual meetings of China’s parliament, Mr. Xi said “the international landscape is fraught with changes and turmoil, and the world has once again arrived at a new crossroads.”
“The respective success of China and the US represents opportunities for one another. A stable relationship benefits the entire world. Cooperation benefits both sides, while confrontation harms both,” he said. We should be partners rather than rivals.”
Mr. Trump hailed his “fantastic relationship” with Mr. Xi, built up over years of discussions, noting “even when there were difficulties we worked it out.”
This week marks his second visit to Beijing as U.S. leader, with a trip in 2017, when China rolled out the reddest of red carpets for Mr. Trump, hailed as a great success at the time.
The good vibes did not last long however, and a much-vaunted comprehensive trade deal failed to materialize. Mr. Trump ended his first term slinging insults and tariffs at Beijing, many of which were maintained by his successor Joe Biden, who was one of the first U.S. leaders in decades not to travel to China, in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
What to expect from the Trump-Xi summit
After Mr. Trump returned to office, he relaunched his trade war against China, slapping tariffs on a host of products. When Beijing responded in kind, the U.S. escalated, leading to a retaliatory cycle that at one point saw tariffs of over 100 per cent on many goods, a situation that would have effectively decoupled the world’s two largest economies.
People's Liberation Army members hold up a U.S. flag and Chinese flags ahead of the arrival of U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday.Evan Vucci/Reuters
Both sides eventually walked this back, and in October 2025, at a summit in Busan, South Korea, the two leaders agreed to a trade truce, to be firmed up at meetings this year. An initial Trump visit was delayed by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, which has scrambled the global economy and stretched the U.S. militarily, potentially weakening Washington’s hand in negotiations with Beijing.
“The only reason for Trump to travel to China is to agree in person to an extension of the Busan truce. Both sides know that they have reached a stalemate and have no alternative to standing down,” said Jeff Moon, a former U.S. trade official focused on China. “That means that, in order to keep the broader truce, they need to find a way to manage the lengthening list of irritants that threaten the relationship. The Iran war is just the latest addition to that list of irritants.”
Trump plays down differences with Xi over Iran ahead of high-stakes Beijing summit
While the meeting itself is a minor win for both sides, expectations are low for anything beyond surface level deals.
“The U.S. list of concrete deliverables is short: keep rare earths flowing, create a board of trade mechanism for non-sensitive sectors, and secure Chinese purchase commitments,” Max Yoeli, a senior research fellow at Chatham House, wrote Wednesday. “The gap between this short agenda and the long list of issues between two nations engaged in grinding, multidimensional competition reveals a shared preference for managing their rivalry rather than resolving it.”
Steve Daines, a U.S. senator and close Trump ally who led a Congressional delegation to China ahead of this week’s trip, described initial priorities as “Boeing, beef, and beans.”
“Clearly, it’s in both leaders’ interests to keep the relationship stable and to de-escalate, not to decouple,” he told CNBC. “China plays a very important role in terms of tying to U.S. businesses and driving our successes here in America directly relating to jobs, fuelling top-line revenues, investments in R&D, next-generation development of products.”
President Donald Trump watches as members of his delegation, including Tesla and SpaceX's CEO Elon Musk and Nvidia President and CEO Jensen Huang, are greeted by China's Vice President Han Zheng and others as they arrive at the Beijing Capital International Airport on Wednesday.BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images
Underlining the economic focus of Mr. Trump’s trip is the delegation he brought with him, which includes the CEOs of Apple, Nvidia, Boeing and Blackrock, as well as Nvidia boss Jensen Huang, a late addition after initial reports suggested he had been snubbed.
More controversially, Mr. Trump’s son Eric, who manages the family businesses which are supposedly firewalled off from the president, has also tagged along to Beijing. In the past, U.S. lawmakers have raised corruption concerns over foreign deals made by the Trump family around official visits.
In a social media post en route to Beijing, Mr. Trump touted the presence of the CEOs in his delegation, saying he would work to “open up” China to U.S. businesses.
Beyond trade, which both sides will be keen to discuss, and other areas of alignment such as cracking down on fentanyl and scam call centres, and — potentially — discussions on AI regulation, there are more controversial issues on the table Thursday.
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Since postponing his visit in March, Mr. Trump has repeatedly called on China to do more to exercise what many in Washington see as Beijing’s leverage over Tehran. While China has reportedly pushed Iran to the table, supporting Pakistan’s ongoing mediation efforts to end the war, it is unclear how much more it can or would be willing to do, and this week even Mr. Trump seemed keen to limit expectations about any potential progress on this issue.
For its part, China is sure to bring up the issue of Taiwan, the self-ruled democracy that Beijing claims as its territory and has threatened to annex by force. There is hope on the Chinese side that Mr. Trump may be persuaded to soften U.S. language on Taiwan — shifting from “not supporting” to “opposing” Taiwan independence — and even scale down or scrap a proposed arms sale to the island.
Any such change in support for Taiwan would be met with fierce resistance from U.S. lawmakers. Jonathan Czin, a former CIA analyst focused on China, said he doubted whether Beijing would necessarily push too far, given the risk of Mr. Trump changing his mind later in a way that would embarrass Mr. Xi.