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Write about: Trump China visit live: US president says a lot of problems ‘settled’, as he meets with Xi on final day of summit | China
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Trump says ‘a lot of different problems’ settled with Xi
Donald Trump just said his visit had been “incredible” and “I think a lot of good has come of it”.
“We’ve made some fantastic trade deals for both countries,” the US president said.
We’ve settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to solve.
Trump said his relationship with Xi Jinping was “a very strong one”.
Sitting beside Xi in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound, Trump also said:
We did discuss Iran. We feel very similar about [how] we want it to end. We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. We want the strait open.”
He also said that “we want them to get it ended because it’s a crazy thing there”.
Trump and Xi speaking in the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing. Photograph: China Pool/Getty Images
Key events
David Smith
Donald Trump has left China after a two-day summit with President Xi Jinping that failed to live up to the hype.
What will be remembered from this trip is Xi’s dark warning of “clashes and even conflicts” with the US if the status of Taiwan is not handled as he sees fit – and Trump’s failure to push back in even a subtle way.
Indeed, past US presidents have come to China with an approach reminiscent of Britain’s King Charles III’s recent visit to Washington: gracious and diplomatic but making some coded points about western democracy that were undeniable to those paying attention.
But Trump, a would-be strongman, crumbled in the presence of the real thing and was deferential throughout, using the word “beautiful” over and over. The only upside is that he did not alienate his hosts or blow up their fragile trade truce.
Trump achieved underwhelming deals for China to buy US oil, soybeans and 200 Boeing aircraft and claims to have agreed with Xi that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon – hardly a major revelation. The presence of his son Eric, who runs the family business, smacked of corruption, and it was not entirely clear what the accompanying tech titans achieved apart from Elon Musk gurning for the cameras.
Trump now returns to a world of domestic pain in the US, with his brief China vacation soon to be forgotten. But the symbolism for Xi and the watching world was unmistakable: a rising power in the east and a declining one in the west.
Trump departs Beijing after talks with Xi
Trump has now boarded Air Force One at Beijing Airport after spending around two hours in the Zhongnanhai leadership compound speaking and speaking privately with Xi Jinping.
The president was accompanied to the airport by Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi where a red carpet to awaited him, and sent off by dozens of schoolchildren, who waved American and Chinese flags and chanted “farewell” in unison.
President Donald Trump reacts as he walks towards Air Force One at Beijing Capital International Airport. Photograph: Evan Vucci/Reuters Photograph: Evan Vucci/Reuters
Summary
In case you’re just joining us, here’s a recap of the day’s events as Donald Trump and Xi Jinping wrap up the second and final day of talks in their much-anticipated two-day summit. It’s 2pm in Beijing.
The US president said “a lot of good” came from his China visit and “we’ve settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to solve”. “We’ve made some fantastic trade deals for both countries,” Trump said while sitting next to Xi in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound, where they were to hold their final talks of the summit.
Trump also said: “We did discuss Iran. We feel very similar about [how] we want it to end. We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. We want the strait open.”
Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in the walled-off Zhongnanhai compound in Beijing on Friday. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AFP/Getty Images
US secretary of state Marco Rubio said the US policy on Taiwan had “not changed”. “It’s been pretty consistent across multiple presidential administrations, and remains consistent now,” he told NBC News.
The White House said Trump and Xi had agreed during their talks on the need to keep the strait of Hormuz open. Trump said separately that his patience with Iran was running out, as a ship was reportedly seized by Iran off the United Arab Emirates. “I am not going to be much more patient,” Trump told Fox News. “They should make a deal.”
Trump also said hunting down Iran’s enriched uranium was primarily for political optics, after Israel demanded it as a goal. “I just feel better if I got it, actually, but it’s – I think, it’s more for public relations than it is for anything else,” Trump told Fox News from China.
US trade representative Jamieson Greer told Bloomberg TV the US believed China was being “very pragmatic” in respect to its involvement with Iran, and that he was confident Beijing would do whatever it could to limit material support for Tehran.
Greer also said an agreement for double-digit billions of dollars in agriculture sales to China was expected after the Beijing summit. Asked by Bloomberg if the year-long trade truce with China expiring this October would be extended as a result of the Beijing summit, he said: “We’ll see about that … there’s certainly a willingness on both sides that – if this continues to work out well for each country – to continue that…”
The US is hoping for a positive response from China on Washington’s appeals for the release of jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai and others, Marco Rubio told NBC.
Asian stocks mostly retreated on Friday as investors watched for developments from the Trump-Xi summit and the Iran war.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.2% after rising earlier in the day. South Korea’s Kospi lost 3.2%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 0.9%, the Shanghai Composite index edged up 0.1% and Australia’s S+P/ASX 200 dipped 0.1%.
Taiwan’s Taiex traded 0.5% lower and India’s Sensex was up 0.1%.
While there is optimism over US-China relations, some analysts are suggesting any deals should be viewed cautiously, the AP reports.
“Headline deals should be looked at with a healthy degree of scepticism,” wrote Leahy Fahy and Julian Evans-Pritchard, China economists at Capital Economics, in a Friday note.
A number of the promised projects and investments that came out of US-China deals from Donald Trump’s last China visit in 2017 did not end up materialising, they said, as tensions between Washington and Beijing elevated rapidly during the few years after that.
Oil prices climbed early on Friday amid the stalled US-Iran talks over the war, with brent crude – the international standard – 1.3% higher at $107.06 per barrel.
How Trump is spending last hours of the summit
Amy Hawkins
Donald Trump’s final hours in Beijing are being spent in Xi Jinping’s private residence, a secretive site near the Forbidden City that few foreigners – or even locals – will ever get a glimpse of.
The US president will have lunch there with Xi before leaving Beijing in the early afternoon, less than 48 hours after he landed.
Xi and Trump during a a tour of the Zhongnanhai gardens. Photograph: China Pool/Getty Images
At a busy intersection near Trump’s hotel, the crowds that gathered to catch a glimpse of the presidential motorcade were thinner on Friday morning than on Thursday evening, with the heavy police presence encouraging people not to loiter. Many grumbled about the inconvenience caused by the repeated road closures.
Asked for their views on Trump, the word that came up again and again from Beijingers was “unpredictable”.
“What he says isn’t necessarily what it means,” said one Trump-watcher, who declined to give his name.
As Trump and Xi hold their final talks in Beijing, the White House has shared the list of participants for the meetings.
Trump is joined by David Purdue, the US ambassador to China; secretary of state Marco Rubio; treasury secretary Scott Bessent; defense secretary Pete Hegseth and US trade representative Jamieson Greer.
Xi is joined by Xie Feng, China’s ambassador to the US; Cai Qi, a director of the central committee of the Communist party of China; foreign affairs minister Wang Yi; deputy foreign affairs minister Ma Zhaoxu; and He Lifeng, vice-premier of the state council.
Trump and Xi after visiting Zhongnanhai gardens. Photograph: China Pool/Getty Images
According to the Associated Press, Donald Trump did something highly unusual for him over the two days of meetings with Xi: he held his tongue in front of the media.
Trump relishes taking reporters’ questions, often doing so nearly every day in the US.
But Xi, like most China’s senior leadership, refrains from press conferences.
Trump and Xi tour the Zhongnanhai leadership compound. Photograph: China Pool/Getty Images
In what might have been deference to Xi, Trump didn’t answer questions when reporters asked them while the pair toured the Temple of Heaven on Thursday.
And he didn’t do so again on Friday while walking with Xi at Zhongnanhai.
Trump says he ‘won’t be much more patient’ with Iran
Returning now to Trump’s earlier comments on Iran, the US president said his patience with Iran was running out after he discussed the war with Xi Jinping on Thursday.
The White House said Trump and Xi had agreed during their summit talks on the need to keep the strait of Hormuz open.
“I am not going to be much more patient,” Trump told Fox News’ Hannity program in an interview. “They should make a deal.”
In the latest incidents in the strait of Hormuz, an Indian cargo vessel carrying livestock from Africa to the UAE was sunk on Wednesday in waters off the coast of Oman.
India condemned the attack and said all 14 crew had been rescued by the Omani coast guard.
Vanguard, a British maritime security advisory firm, said the vessel was believed to have been hit by a missile or drone which caused an explosion.
Before they sat together, Trump and Xi spent about 10 minutes walking in the gardens of the Zhongnanhai compound.
“These are the most beautiful roses anyone has ever seen,” Trump reportedly said while walking past green columns and archways.
Xi later said he would send some rose seeds to Trump “as a gift”.
Xi and Trump at Zhongnanhai in Beijing. Photograph: Mark Schiefelbein/AFP/Getty Images
Trump says ‘a lot of different problems’ settled with Xi
Donald Trump just said his visit had been “incredible” and “I think a lot of good has come of it”.
“We’ve made some fantastic trade deals for both countries,” the US president said.
We’ve settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to solve.
Trump said his relationship with Xi Jinping was “a very strong one”.
Sitting beside Xi in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound, Trump also said:
We did discuss Iran. We feel very similar about [how] we want it to end. We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. We want the strait open.”
He also said that “we want them to get it ended because it’s a crazy thing there”.
Trump and Xi speaking in the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing. Photograph: China Pool/Getty Images
Xi Jinping and Donald Trump are now sitting together in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound complex and Xi is speaking.
Trump says getting Iran’s enriched uranium ‘more for public relations’
Before these final meetings of the Beijing summit, Donald Trump suggested that hunting down Iran’s enriched uranium was primarily for political optics, after Israel demanded it as a goal.
“I just feel better if I got it, actually, but it’s – I think, it’s more for public relations than it is for anything else,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity in an interview from China.
“The other thing we could do is bomb it again,” Trump said. “But I, just, I would feel better getting it, and we will get it.”
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who alongside Trump ordered the attacks on Iran that began on 28 February, said in a recent interview that the war was “not over” because the sensitive nuclear material “has to be taken out” of the country, Agence France-Presse reports.
Iran has not confirmed the location of its highly enriched uranium, which some experts believe could be buried deep underground, making the task of seizing it prohibitively difficult without precise intelligence.
Trump, in a social media post on Friday referring to his second administration’s achievements, said they included “the military decimation of Iran (to be continued!)”.
Xi and Trump meet at Chinese leadership compound
Donald Trump has reportedly arrived at Beijing’s Zhongnanhai complex – China’s leadership compound – for a meeting with Xi Jinping.
The two leaders are set to pose together in the gardens of the walled-off compound – next to the Chinese capital’s Forbidden City – and then have a working tea and a closed-door lunch.
Afterwards their two-day summit wraps up and the US president is to leave China for Washington on Friday afternoon.
Donald Trump after Xi Jinping greets him at the Zhongnanhai garden in Beijing on Friday. Photograph: Evan Vucci/Reuters
The US trade representative also said rare earth exports from China to the US were improving but Beijing was still slow to approve some shipments.
Jamieson Greer told Bloomberg TV that China was still dragging its feet with some export licenses and US officials had to intervene on the behalf of affected companies.
“I would give them a passing grade on this,” he said in the interview.
We’ve certainly seen the rare earths come back up to better levels. Sometimes it’s slow. There are times when we have to go and make our point.”
China introduced the rare earth export controls in April 2025 in retaliation for Donald Trump’s tariffs, and the controls reportedly continue to tightly restrict exports of some rare earths despite a deal last October in which the White House says Beijing agreed to allow shipments to freely flow.
See our quick explainer here on why rare earths are so important and have been a flashpoint in diplomacy and trade:
Greer was also asked on Bloomberg TV if the one-year trade truce with China expiring this October would be extended as a result of the Beijing summit. He responded:
We’ll see about that … there’s certainly a willingness on both sides that – if this continues to work out well for each country – to continue that, and to extend this ability to make sure we’re getting rare earths, that we’re selling the types of things we should be selling to China, and we’re trying to manage differences rather than escalate them.”
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Trump says ‘a lot of different problems’ settled with Xi
Donald Trump just said his visit had been “incredible” and “I think a lot of good has come of it”.
“We’ve made some fantastic trade deals for both countries,” the US president said.
We’ve settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to solve.
Trump said his relationship with Xi Jinping was “a very strong one”.
Sitting beside Xi in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound, Trump also said:
We did discuss Iran. We feel very similar about [how] we want it to end. We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. We want the strait open.”
He also said that “we want them to get it ended because it’s a crazy thing there”.
Trump and Xi speaking in the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing. Photograph: China Pool/Getty Images
Key events
David Smith
Donald Trump has left China after a two-day summit with President Xi Jinping that failed to live up to the hype.
What will be remembered from this trip is Xi’s dark warning of “clashes and even conflicts” with the US if the status of Taiwan is not handled as he sees fit – and Trump’s failure to push back in even a subtle way.
Indeed, past US presidents have come to China with an approach reminiscent of Britain’s King Charles III’s recent visit to Washington: gracious and diplomatic but making some coded points about western democracy that were undeniable to those paying attention.
But Trump, a would-be strongman, crumbled in the presence of the real thing and was deferential throughout, using the word “beautiful” over and over. The only upside is that he did not alienate his hosts or blow up their fragile trade truce.
Trump achieved underwhelming deals for China to buy US oil, soybeans and 200 Boeing aircraft and claims to have agreed with Xi that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon – hardly a major revelation. The presence of his son Eric, who runs the family business, smacked of corruption, and it was not entirely clear what the accompanying tech titans achieved apart from Elon Musk gurning for the cameras.
Trump now returns to a world of domestic pain in the US, with his brief China vacation soon to be forgotten. But the symbolism for Xi and the watching world was unmistakable: a rising power in the east and a declining one in the west.
Trump departs Beijing after talks with Xi
Trump has now boarded Air Force One at Beijing Airport after spending around two hours in the Zhongnanhai leadership compound speaking and speaking privately with Xi Jinping.
The president was accompanied to the airport by Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi where a red carpet to awaited him, and sent off by dozens of schoolchildren, who waved American and Chinese flags and chanted “farewell” in unison.
President Donald Trump reacts as he walks towards Air Force One at Beijing Capital International Airport. Photograph: Evan Vucci/Reuters Photograph: Evan Vucci/Reuters
Summary
In case you’re just joining us, here’s a recap of the day’s events as Donald Trump and Xi Jinping wrap up the second and final day of talks in their much-anticipated two-day summit. It’s 2pm in Beijing.
The US president said “a lot of good” came from his China visit and “we’ve settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to solve”. “We’ve made some fantastic trade deals for both countries,” Trump said while sitting next to Xi in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound, where they were to hold their final talks of the summit.
Trump also said: “We did discuss Iran. We feel very similar about [how] we want it to end. We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. We want the strait open.”
Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in the walled-off Zhongnanhai compound in Beijing on Friday. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AFP/Getty Images
US secretary of state Marco Rubio said the US policy on Taiwan had “not changed”. “It’s been pretty consistent across multiple presidential administrations, and remains consistent now,” he told NBC News.
The White House said Trump and Xi had agreed during their talks on the need to keep the strait of Hormuz open. Trump said separately that his patience with Iran was running out, as a ship was reportedly seized by Iran off the United Arab Emirates. “I am not going to be much more patient,” Trump told Fox News. “They should make a deal.”
Trump also said hunting down Iran’s enriched uranium was primarily for political optics, after Israel demanded it as a goal. “I just feel better if I got it, actually, but it’s – I think, it’s more for public relations than it is for anything else,” Trump told Fox News from China.
US trade representative Jamieson Greer told Bloomberg TV the US believed China was being “very pragmatic” in respect to its involvement with Iran, and that he was confident Beijing would do whatever it could to limit material support for Tehran.
Greer also said an agreement for double-digit billions of dollars in agriculture sales to China was expected after the Beijing summit. Asked by Bloomberg if the year-long trade truce with China expiring this October would be extended as a result of the Beijing summit, he said: “We’ll see about that … there’s certainly a willingness on both sides that – if this continues to work out well for each country – to continue that…”
The US is hoping for a positive response from China on Washington’s appeals for the release of jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai and others, Marco Rubio told NBC.
Asian stocks mostly retreated on Friday as investors watched for developments from the Trump-Xi summit and the Iran war.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.2% after rising earlier in the day. South Korea’s Kospi lost 3.2%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 0.9%, the Shanghai Composite index edged up 0.1% and Australia’s S+P/ASX 200 dipped 0.1%.
Taiwan’s Taiex traded 0.5% lower and India’s Sensex was up 0.1%.
While there is optimism over US-China relations, some analysts are suggesting any deals should be viewed cautiously, the AP reports.
“Headline deals should be looked at with a healthy degree of scepticism,” wrote Leahy Fahy and Julian Evans-Pritchard, China economists at Capital Economics, in a Friday note.
A number of the promised projects and investments that came out of US-China deals from Donald Trump’s last China visit in 2017 did not end up materialising, they said, as tensions between Washington and Beijing elevated rapidly during the few years after that.
Oil prices climbed early on Friday amid the stalled US-Iran talks over the war, with brent crude – the international standard – 1.3% higher at $107.06 per barrel.
How Trump is spending last hours of the summit
Amy Hawkins
Donald Trump’s final hours in Beijing are being spent in Xi Jinping’s private residence, a secretive site near the Forbidden City that few foreigners – or even locals – will ever get a glimpse of.
The US president will have lunch there with Xi before leaving Beijing in the early afternoon, less than 48 hours after he landed.
Xi and Trump during a a tour of the Zhongnanhai gardens. Photograph: China Pool/Getty Images
At a busy intersection near Trump’s hotel, the crowds that gathered to catch a glimpse of the presidential motorcade were thinner on Friday morning than on Thursday evening, with the heavy police presence encouraging people not to loiter. Many grumbled about the inconvenience caused by the repeated road closures.
Asked for their views on Trump, the word that came up again and again from Beijingers was “unpredictable”.
“What he says isn’t necessarily what it means,” said one Trump-watcher, who declined to give his name.
As Trump and Xi hold their final talks in Beijing, the White House has shared the list of participants for the meetings.
Trump is joined by David Purdue, the US ambassador to China; secretary of state Marco Rubio; treasury secretary Scott Bessent; defense secretary Pete Hegseth and US trade representative Jamieson Greer.
Xi is joined by Xie Feng, China’s ambassador to the US; Cai Qi, a director of the central committee of the Communist party of China; foreign affairs minister Wang Yi; deputy foreign affairs minister Ma Zhaoxu; and He Lifeng, vice-premier of the state council.
Trump and Xi after visiting Zhongnanhai gardens. Photograph: China Pool/Getty Images
According to the Associated Press, Donald Trump did something highly unusual for him over the two days of meetings with Xi: he held his tongue in front of the media.
Trump relishes taking reporters’ questions, often doing so nearly every day in the US.
But Xi, like most China’s senior leadership, refrains from press conferences.
Trump and Xi tour the Zhongnanhai leadership compound. Photograph: China Pool/Getty Images
In what might have been deference to Xi, Trump didn’t answer questions when reporters asked them while the pair toured the Temple of Heaven on Thursday.
And he didn’t do so again on Friday while walking with Xi at Zhongnanhai.
Trump says he ‘won’t be much more patient’ with Iran
Returning now to Trump’s earlier comments on Iran, the US president said his patience with Iran was running out after he discussed the war with Xi Jinping on Thursday.
The White House said Trump and Xi had agreed during their summit talks on the need to keep the strait of Hormuz open.
“I am not going to be much more patient,” Trump told Fox News’ Hannity program in an interview. “They should make a deal.”
In the latest incidents in the strait of Hormuz, an Indian cargo vessel carrying livestock from Africa to the UAE was sunk on Wednesday in waters off the coast of Oman.
India condemned the attack and said all 14 crew had been rescued by the Omani coast guard.
Vanguard, a British maritime security advisory firm, said the vessel was believed to have been hit by a missile or drone which caused an explosion.
Before they sat together, Trump and Xi spent about 10 minutes walking in the gardens of the Zhongnanhai compound.
“These are the most beautiful roses anyone has ever seen,” Trump reportedly said while walking past green columns and archways.
Xi later said he would send some rose seeds to Trump “as a gift”.
Xi and Trump at Zhongnanhai in Beijing. Photograph: Mark Schiefelbein/AFP/Getty Images
Trump says ‘a lot of different problems’ settled with Xi
Donald Trump just said his visit had been “incredible” and “I think a lot of good has come of it”.
“We’ve made some fantastic trade deals for both countries,” the US president said.
We’ve settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to solve.
Trump said his relationship with Xi Jinping was “a very strong one”.
Sitting beside Xi in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound, Trump also said:
We did discuss Iran. We feel very similar about [how] we want it to end. We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. We want the strait open.”
He also said that “we want them to get it ended because it’s a crazy thing there”.
Trump and Xi speaking in the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing. Photograph: China Pool/Getty Images
Xi Jinping and Donald Trump are now sitting together in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound complex and Xi is speaking.
Trump says getting Iran’s enriched uranium ‘more for public relations’
Before these final meetings of the Beijing summit, Donald Trump suggested that hunting down Iran’s enriched uranium was primarily for political optics, after Israel demanded it as a goal.
“I just feel better if I got it, actually, but it’s – I think, it’s more for public relations than it is for anything else,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity in an interview from China.
“The other thing we could do is bomb it again,” Trump said. “But I, just, I would feel better getting it, and we will get it.”
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who alongside Trump ordered the attacks on Iran that began on 28 February, said in a recent interview that the war was “not over” because the sensitive nuclear material “has to be taken out” of the country, Agence France-Presse reports.
Iran has not confirmed the location of its highly enriched uranium, which some experts believe could be buried deep underground, making the task of seizing it prohibitively difficult without precise intelligence.
Trump, in a social media post on Friday referring to his second administration’s achievements, said they included “the military decimation of Iran (to be continued!)”.
Xi and Trump meet at Chinese leadership compound
Donald Trump has reportedly arrived at Beijing’s Zhongnanhai complex – China’s leadership compound – for a meeting with Xi Jinping.
The two leaders are set to pose together in the gardens of the walled-off compound – next to the Chinese capital’s Forbidden City – and then have a working tea and a closed-door lunch.
Afterwards their two-day summit wraps up and the US president is to leave China for Washington on Friday afternoon.
Donald Trump after Xi Jinping greets him at the Zhongnanhai garden in Beijing on Friday. Photograph: Evan Vucci/Reuters
The US trade representative also said rare earth exports from China to the US were improving but Beijing was still slow to approve some shipments.
Jamieson Greer told Bloomberg TV that China was still dragging its feet with some export licenses and US officials had to intervene on the behalf of affected companies.
“I would give them a passing grade on this,” he said in the interview.
We’ve certainly seen the rare earths come back up to better levels. Sometimes it’s slow. There are times when we have to go and make our point.”
Xi Jinping meeting Trump
China introduced the rare earth export controls in April 2025 in retaliation for Donald Trump’s tariffs, and the controls reportedly continue to tightly restrict exports of some rare earths despite a deal last October in which the White House says Beijing agreed to allow shipments to freely flow.
See our quick explainer here on why rare earths are so important and have been a flashpoint in diplomacy and trade:
Greer was also asked on Bloomberg TV if the one-year trade truce with China expiring this October would be extended as a result of the Beijing summit. He responded:
We’ll see about that … there’s certainly a willingness on both sides that – if this continues to work out well for each country – to continue that, and to extend this ability to make sure we’re getting rare earths, that we’re selling the types of things we should be selling to China, and we’re trying to manage differences rather than escalate them.”
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Trump says ‘a lot of different problems’ settled with Xi
Donald Trump just said his visit had been “incredible” and “I think a lot of good has come of it”.
“We’ve made some fantastic trade deals for both countries,” the US president said.
We’ve settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to solve.
Trump said his relationship with Xi Jinping was “a very strong one”.
Sitting beside Xi in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound, Trump also said:
We did discuss Iran. We feel very similar about [how] we want it to end. We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. We want the strait open.”
He also said that “we want them to get it ended because it’s a crazy thing there”.
Trump and Xi speaking in the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing. Photograph: China Pool/Getty Images
Key events
David Smith
Donald Trump has left China after a two-day summit with President Xi Jinping that failed to live up to the hype.
What will be remembered from this trip is Xi’s dark warning of “clashes and even conflicts” with the US if the status of Taiwan is not handled as he sees fit – and Trump’s failure to push back in even a subtle way.
Indeed, past US presidents have come to China with an approach reminiscent of Britain’s King Charles III’s recent visit to Washington: gracious and diplomatic but making some coded points about western democracy that were undeniable to those paying attention.
But Trump, a would-be strongman, crumbled in the presence of the real thing and was deferential throughout, using the word “beautiful” over and over. The only upside is that he did not alienate his hosts or blow up their fragile trade truce.
Trump achieved underwhelming deals for China to buy US oil, soybeans and 200 Boeing aircraft and claims to have agreed with Xi that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon – hardly a major revelation. The presence of his son Eric, who runs the family business, smacked of corruption, and it was not entirely clear what the accompanying tech titans achieved apart from Elon Musk gurning for the cameras.
Trump now returns to a world of domestic pain in the US, with his brief China vacation soon to be forgotten. But the symbolism for Xi and the watching world was unmistakable: a rising power in the east and a declining one in the west.
Trump departs Beijing after talks with Xi
Trump has now boarded Air Force One at Beijing Airport after spending around two hours in the Zhongnanhai leadership compound speaking and speaking privately with Xi Jinping.
The president was accompanied to the airport by Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi where a red carpet to awaited him, and sent off by dozens of schoolchildren, who waved American and Chinese flags and chanted “farewell” in unison.
President Donald Trump reacts as he walks towards Air Force One at Beijing Capital International Airport. Photograph: Evan Vucci/Reuters Photograph: Evan Vucci/Reuters
Summary
In case you’re just joining us, here’s a recap of the day’s events as Donald Trump and Xi Jinping wrap up the second and final day of talks in their much-anticipated two-day summit. It’s 2pm in Beijing.
The US president said “a lot of good” came from his China visit and “we’ve settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to solve”. “We’ve made some fantastic trade deals for both countries,” Trump said while sitting next to Xi in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound, where they were to hold their final talks of the summit.
Trump also said: “We did discuss Iran. We feel very similar about [how] we want it to end. We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. We want the strait open.”
Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in the walled-off Zhongnanhai compound in Beijing on Friday. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AFP/Getty Images
US secretary of state Marco Rubio said the US policy on Taiwan had “not changed”. “It’s been pretty consistent across multiple presidential administrations, and remains consistent now,” he told NBC News.
The White House said Trump and Xi had agreed during their talks on the need to keep the strait of Hormuz open. Trump said separately that his patience with Iran was running out, as a ship was reportedly seized by Iran off the United Arab Emirates. “I am not going to be much more patient,” Trump told Fox News. “They should make a deal.”
Trump also said hunting down Iran’s enriched uranium was primarily for political optics, after Israel demanded it as a goal. “I just feel better if I got it, actually, but it’s – I think, it’s more for public relations than it is for anything else,” Trump told Fox News from China.
US trade representative Jamieson Greer told Bloomberg TV the US believed China was being “very pragmatic” in respect to its involvement with Iran, and that he was confident Beijing would do whatever it could to limit material support for Tehran.
Greer also said an agreement for double-digit billions of dollars in agriculture sales to China was expected after the Beijing summit. Asked by Bloomberg if the year-long trade truce with China expiring this October would be extended as a result of the Beijing summit, he said: “We’ll see about that … there’s certainly a willingness on both sides that – if this continues to work out well for each country – to continue that…”
The US is hoping for a positive response from China on Washington’s appeals for the release of jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai and others, Marco Rubio told NBC.
Asian stocks mostly retreated on Friday as investors watched for developments from the Trump-Xi summit and the Iran war.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.2% after rising earlier in the day. South Korea’s Kospi lost 3.2%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 0.9%, the Shanghai Composite index edged up 0.1% and Australia’s S+P/ASX 200 dipped 0.1%.
Taiwan’s Taiex traded 0.5% lower and India’s Sensex was up 0.1%.
While there is optimism over US-China relations, some analysts are suggesting any deals should be viewed cautiously, the AP reports.
“Headline deals should be looked at with a healthy degree of scepticism,” wrote Leahy Fahy and Julian Evans-Pritchard, China economists at Capital Economics, in a Friday note.
A number of the promised projects and investments that came out of US-China deals from Donald Trump’s last China visit in 2017 did not end up materialising, they said, as tensions between Washington and Beijing elevated rapidly during the few years after that.
Oil prices climbed early on Friday amid the stalled US-Iran talks over the war, with brent crude – the international standard – 1.3% higher at $107.06 per barrel.
How Trump is spending last hours of the summit
Amy Hawkins
Donald Trump’s final hours in Beijing are being spent in Xi Jinping’s private residence, a secretive site near the Forbidden City that few foreigners – or even locals – will ever get a glimpse of.
The US president will have lunch there with Xi before leaving Beijing in the early afternoon, less than 48 hours after he landed.
Xi and Trump during a a tour of the Zhongnanhai gardens. Photograph: China Pool/Getty Images
At a busy intersection near Trump’s hotel, the crowds that gathered to catch a glimpse of the presidential motorcade were thinner on Friday morning than on Thursday evening, with the heavy police presence encouraging people not to loiter. Many grumbled about the inconvenience caused by the repeated road closures.
Asked for their views on Trump, the word that came up again and again from Beijingers was “unpredictable”.
“What he says isn’t necessarily what it means,” said one Trump-watcher, who declined to give his name.
As Trump and Xi hold their final talks in Beijing, the White House has shared the list of participants for the meetings.
Trump is joined by David Purdue, the US ambassador to China; secretary of state Marco Rubio; treasury secretary Scott Bessent; defense secretary Pete Hegseth and US trade representative Jamieson Greer.
Xi is joined by Xie Feng, China’s ambassador to the US; Cai Qi, a director of the central committee of the Communist party of China; foreign affairs minister Wang Yi; deputy foreign affairs minister Ma Zhaoxu; and He Lifeng, vice-premier of the state council.
Trump and Xi after visiting Zhongnanhai gardens. Photograph: China Pool/Getty Images
According to the Associated Press, Donald Trump did something highly unusual for him over the two days of meetings with Xi: he held his tongue in front of the media.
Trump relishes taking reporters’ questions, often doing so nearly every day in the US.
But Xi, like most China’s senior leadership, refrains from press conferences.
Trump and Xi tour the Zhongnanhai leadership compound. Photograph: China Pool/Getty Images
In what might have been deference to Xi, Trump didn’t answer questions when reporters asked them while the pair toured the Temple of Heaven on Thursday.
And he didn’t do so again on Friday while walking with Xi at Zhongnanhai.
Trump says he ‘won’t be much more patient’ with Iran
Returning now to Trump’s earlier comments on Iran, the US president said his patience with Iran was running out after he discussed the war with Xi Jinping on Thursday.
The White House said Trump and Xi had agreed during their summit talks on the need to keep the strait of Hormuz open.
“I am not going to be much more patient,” Trump told Fox News’ Hannity program in an interview. “They should make a deal.”
In the latest incidents in the strait of Hormuz, an Indian cargo vessel carrying livestock from Africa to the UAE was sunk on Wednesday in waters off the coast of Oman.
India condemned the attack and said all 14 crew had been rescued by the Omani coast guard.
Vanguard, a British maritime security advisory firm, said the vessel was believed to have been hit by a missile or drone which caused an explosion.
Before they sat together, Trump and Xi spent about 10 minutes walking in the gardens of the Zhongnanhai compound.
“These are the most beautiful roses anyone has ever seen,” Trump reportedly said while walking past green columns and archways.
Xi later said he would send some rose seeds to Trump “as a gift”.
Xi and Trump at Zhongnanhai in Beijing. Photograph: Mark Schiefelbein/AFP/Getty Images
Trump says ‘a lot of different problems’ settled with Xi
Donald Trump just said his visit had been “incredible” and “I think a lot of good has come of it”.
“We’ve made some fantastic trade deals for both countries,” the US president said.
We’ve settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to solve.
Trump said his relationship with Xi Jinping was “a very strong one”.
Sitting beside Xi in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound, Trump also said:
We did discuss Iran. We feel very similar about [how] we want it to end. We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. We want the strait open.”
He also said that “we want them to get it ended because it’s a crazy thing there”.
Trump and Xi speaking in the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing. Photograph: China Pool/Getty Images
Xi Jinping and Donald Trump are now sitting together in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound complex and Xi is speaking.
Trump says getting Iran’s enriched uranium ‘more for public relations’
Before these final meetings of the Beijing summit, Donald Trump suggested that hunting down Iran’s enriched uranium was primarily for political optics, after Israel demanded it as a goal.
“I just feel better if I got it, actually, but it’s – I think, it’s more for public relations than it is for anything else,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity in an interview from China.
“The other thing we could do is bomb it again,” Trump said. “But I, just, I would feel better getting it, and we will get it.”
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who alongside Trump ordered the attacks on Iran that began on 28 February, said in a recent interview that the war was “not over” because the sensitive nuclear material “has to be taken out” of the country, Agence France-Presse reports.
Iran has not confirmed the location of its highly enriched uranium, which some experts believe could be buried deep underground, making the task of seizing it prohibitively difficult without precise intelligence.
Trump, in a social media post on Friday referring to his second administration’s achievements, said they included “the military decimation of Iran (to be continued!)”.
Xi and Trump meet at Chinese leadership compound
Donald Trump has reportedly arrived at Beijing’s Zhongnanhai complex – China’s leadership compound – for a meeting with Xi Jinping.
The two leaders are set to pose together in the gardens of the walled-off compound – next to the Chinese capital’s Forbidden City – and then have a working tea and a closed-door lunch.
Afterwards their two-day summit wraps up and the US president is to leave China for Washington on Friday afternoon.
Donald Trump after Xi Jinping greets him at the Zhongnanhai garden in Beijing on Friday. Photograph: Evan Vucci/Reuters
The US trade representative also said rare earth exports from China to the US were improving but Beijing was still slow to approve some shipments.
Jamieson Greer told Bloomberg TV that China was still dragging its feet with some export licenses and US officials had to intervene on the behalf of affected companies.
“I would give them a passing grade on this,” he said in the interview.
We’ve certainly seen the rare earths come back up to better levels. Sometimes it’s slow. There are times when we have to go and make our point.”
China introduced the rare earth export controls in April 2025 in retaliation for Donald Trump’s tariffs, and the controls reportedly continue to tightly restrict exports of some rare earths despite a deal last October in which the White House says Beijing agreed to allow shipments to freely flow.
FULL SPECIAL REPORT: The Trump-Xi Beijing summit
See our quick explainer here on why rare earths are so important and have been a flashpoint in diplomacy and trade:
Greer was also asked on Bloomberg TV if the one-year trade truce with China expiring this October would be extended as a result of the Beijing summit. He responded:
We’ll see about that … there’s certainly a willingness on both sides that – if this continues to work out well for each country – to continue that, and to extend this ability to make sure we’re getting rare earths, that we’re selling the types of things we should be selling to China, and we’re trying to manage differences rather than escalate them.”
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Trump says ‘a lot of different problems’ settled with Xi
Donald Trump just said his visit had been “incredible” and “I think a lot of good has come of it”.
“We’ve made some fantastic trade deals for both countries,” the US president said.
We’ve settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to solve.
Trump said his relationship with Xi Jinping was “a very strong one”.
Sitting beside Xi in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound, Trump also said:
We did discuss Iran. We feel very similar about [how] we want it to end. We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. We want the strait open.”
He also said that “we want them to get it ended because it’s a crazy thing there”.
Trump and Xi speaking in the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing. Photograph: China Pool/Getty Images
Key events
David Smith
Donald Trump has left China after a two-day summit with President Xi Jinping that failed to live up to the hype.
What will be remembered from this trip is Xi’s dark warning of “clashes and even conflicts” with the US if the status of Taiwan is not handled as he sees fit – and Trump’s failure to push back in even a subtle way.
Indeed, past US presidents have come to China with an approach reminiscent of Britain’s King Charles III’s recent visit to Washington: gracious and diplomatic but making some coded points about western democracy that were undeniable to those paying attention.
But Trump, a would-be strongman, crumbled in the presence of the real thing and was deferential throughout, using the word “beautiful” over and over. The only upside is that he did not alienate his hosts or blow up their fragile trade truce.
Trump achieved underwhelming deals for China to buy US oil, soybeans and 200 Boeing aircraft and claims to have agreed with Xi that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon – hardly a major revelation. The presence of his son Eric, who runs the family business, smacked of corruption, and it was not entirely clear what the accompanying tech titans achieved apart from Elon Musk gurning for the cameras.
Trump now returns to a world of domestic pain in the US, with his brief China vacation soon to be forgotten. But the symbolism for Xi and the watching world was unmistakable: a rising power in the east and a declining one in the west.
Trump departs Beijing after talks with Xi
Trump has now boarded Air Force One at Beijing Airport after spending around two hours in the Zhongnanhai leadership compound speaking and speaking privately with Xi Jinping.
The president was accompanied to the airport by Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi where a red carpet to awaited him, and sent off by dozens of schoolchildren, who waved American and Chinese flags and chanted “farewell” in unison.
President Donald Trump reacts as he walks towards Air Force One at Beijing Capital International Airport. Photograph: Evan Vucci/Reuters Photograph: Evan Vucci/Reuters
Summary
In case you’re just joining us, here’s a recap of the day’s events as Donald Trump and Xi Jinping wrap up the second and final day of talks in their much-anticipated two-day summit. It’s 2pm in Beijing.
The US president said “a lot of good” came from his China visit and “we’ve settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to solve”. “We’ve made some fantastic trade deals for both countries,” Trump said while sitting next to Xi in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound, where they were to hold their final talks of the summit.
Trump also said: “We did discuss Iran. We feel very similar about [how] we want it to end. We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. We want the strait open.”
Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in the walled-off Zhongnanhai compound in Beijing on Friday. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AFP/Getty Images
US secretary of state Marco Rubio said the US policy on Taiwan had “not changed”. “It’s been pretty consistent across multiple presidential administrations, and remains consistent now,” he told NBC News.
The White House said Trump and Xi had agreed during their talks on the need to keep the strait of Hormuz open. Trump said separately that his patience with Iran was running out, as a ship was reportedly seized by Iran off the United Arab Emirates. “I am not going to be much more patient,” Trump told Fox News. “They should make a deal.”
Trump also said hunting down Iran’s enriched uranium was primarily for political optics, after Israel demanded it as a goal. “I just feel better if I got it, actually, but it’s – I think, it’s more for public relations than it is for anything else,” Trump told Fox News from China.
US trade representative Jamieson Greer told Bloomberg TV the US believed China was being “very pragmatic” in respect to its involvement with Iran, and that he was confident Beijing would do whatever it could to limit material support for Tehran.
Greer also said an agreement for double-digit billions of dollars in agriculture sales to China was expected after the Beijing summit. Asked by Bloomberg if the year-long trade truce with China expiring this October would be extended as a result of the Beijing summit, he said: “We’ll see about that … there’s certainly a willingness on both sides that – if this continues to work out well for each country – to continue that…”
The US is hoping for a positive response from China on Washington’s appeals for the release of jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai and others, Marco Rubio told NBC.
Asian stocks mostly retreated on Friday as investors watched for developments from the Trump-Xi summit and the Iran war.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.2% after rising earlier in the day. South Korea’s Kospi lost 3.2%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 0.9%, the Shanghai Composite index edged up 0.1% and Australia’s S+P/ASX 200 dipped 0.1%.
Taiwan’s Taiex traded 0.5% lower and India’s Sensex was up 0.1%.
While there is optimism over US-China relations, some analysts are suggesting any deals should be viewed cautiously, the AP reports.
“Headline deals should be looked at with a healthy degree of scepticism,” wrote Leahy Fahy and Julian Evans-Pritchard, China economists at Capital Economics, in a Friday note.
A number of the promised projects and investments that came out of US-China deals from Donald Trump’s last China visit in 2017 did not end up materialising, they said, as tensions between Washington and Beijing elevated rapidly during the few years after that.
Oil prices climbed early on Friday amid the stalled US-Iran talks over the war, with brent crude – the international standard – 1.3% higher at $107.06 per barrel.
How Trump is spending last hours of the summit
Amy Hawkins
Donald Trump’s final hours in Beijing are being spent in Xi Jinping’s private residence, a secretive site near the Forbidden City that few foreigners – or even locals – will ever get a glimpse of.
The US president will have lunch there with Xi before leaving Beijing in the early afternoon, less than 48 hours after he landed.
Xi and Trump during a a tour of the Zhongnanhai gardens. Photograph: China Pool/Getty Images
At a busy intersection near Trump’s hotel, the crowds that gathered to catch a glimpse of the presidential motorcade were thinner on Friday morning than on Thursday evening, with the heavy police presence encouraging people not to loiter. Many grumbled about the inconvenience caused by the repeated road closures.
Asked for their views on Trump, the word that came up again and again from Beijingers was “unpredictable”.
“What he says isn’t necessarily what it means,” said one Trump-watcher, who declined to give his name.
As Trump and Xi hold their final talks in Beijing, the White House has shared the list of participants for the meetings.
Trump is joined by David Purdue, the US ambassador to China; secretary of state Marco Rubio; treasury secretary Scott Bessent; defense secretary Pete Hegseth and US trade representative Jamieson Greer.
Xi is joined by Xie Feng, China’s ambassador to the US; Cai Qi, a director of the central committee of the Communist party of China; foreign affairs minister Wang Yi; deputy foreign affairs minister Ma Zhaoxu; and He Lifeng, vice-premier of the state council.
Trump and Xi after visiting Zhongnanhai gardens. Photograph: China Pool/Getty Images
According to the Associated Press, Donald Trump did something highly unusual for him over the two days of meetings with Xi: he held his tongue in front of the media.
Trump relishes taking reporters’ questions, often doing so nearly every day in the US.
But Xi, like most China’s senior leadership, refrains from press conferences.
Trump and Xi tour the Zhongnanhai leadership compound. Photograph: China Pool/Getty Images
In what might have been deference to Xi, Trump didn’t answer questions when reporters asked them while the pair toured the Temple of Heaven on Thursday.
And he didn’t do so again on Friday while walking with Xi at Zhongnanhai.
Trump says he ‘won’t be much more patient’ with Iran
Returning now to Trump’s earlier comments on Iran, the US president said his patience with Iran was running out after he discussed the war with Xi Jinping on Thursday.
The White House said Trump and Xi had agreed during their summit talks on the need to keep the strait of Hormuz open.
“I am not going to be much more patient,” Trump told Fox News’ Hannity program in an interview. “They should make a deal.”
In the latest incidents in the strait of Hormuz, an Indian cargo vessel carrying livestock from Africa to the UAE was sunk on Wednesday in waters off the coast of Oman.
India condemned the attack and said all 14 crew had been rescued by the Omani coast guard.
Vanguard, a British maritime security advisory firm, said the vessel was believed to have been hit by a missile or drone which caused an explosion.
Before they sat together, Trump and Xi spent about 10 minutes walking in the gardens of the Zhongnanhai compound.
“These are the most beautiful roses anyone has ever seen,” Trump reportedly said while walking past green columns and archways.
Xi later said he would send some rose seeds to Trump “as a gift”.
Xi and Trump at Zhongnanhai in Beijing. Photograph: Mark Schiefelbein/AFP/Getty Images
Trump says ‘a lot of different problems’ settled with Xi
Donald Trump just said his visit had been “incredible” and “I think a lot of good has come of it”.
“We’ve made some fantastic trade deals for both countries,” the US president said.
We’ve settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to solve.
Trump said his relationship with Xi Jinping was “a very strong one”.
Sitting beside Xi in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound, Trump also said:
We did discuss Iran. We feel very similar about [how] we want it to end. We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. We want the strait open.”
He also said that “we want them to get it ended because it’s a crazy thing there”.
Trump and Xi speaking in the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing. Photograph: China Pool/Getty Images
Xi Jinping and Donald Trump are now sitting together in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound complex and Xi is speaking.
Trump says getting Iran’s enriched uranium ‘more for public relations’
Before these final meetings of the Beijing summit, Donald Trump suggested that hunting down Iran’s enriched uranium was primarily for political optics, after Israel demanded it as a goal.
“I just feel better if I got it, actually, but it’s – I think, it’s more for public relations than it is for anything else,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity in an interview from China.
“The other thing we could do is bomb it again,” Trump said. “But I, just, I would feel better getting it, and we will get it.”
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who alongside Trump ordered the attacks on Iran that began on 28 February, said in a recent interview that the war was “not over” because the sensitive nuclear material “has to be taken out” of the country, Agence France-Presse reports.
Iran has not confirmed the location of its highly enriched uranium, which some experts believe could be buried deep underground, making the task of seizing it prohibitively difficult without precise intelligence.
Trump, in a social media post on Friday referring to his second administration’s achievements, said they included “the military decimation of Iran (to be continued!)”.
Xi and Trump meet at Chinese leadership compound
Donald Trump has reportedly arrived at Beijing’s Zhongnanhai complex – China’s leadership compound – for a meeting with Xi Jinping.
The two leaders are set to pose together in the gardens of the walled-off compound – next to the Chinese capital’s Forbidden City – and then have a working tea and a closed-door lunch.
Afterwards their two-day summit wraps up and the US president is to leave China for Washington on Friday afternoon.
Donald Trump after Xi Jinping greets him at the Zhongnanhai garden in Beijing on Friday. Photograph: Evan Vucci/Reuters
The US trade representative also said rare earth exports from China to the US were improving but Beijing was still slow to approve some shipments.
Jamieson Greer told Bloomberg TV that China was still dragging its feet with some export licenses and US officials had to intervene on the behalf of affected companies.
“I would give them a passing grade on this,” he said in the interview.
We’ve certainly seen the rare earths come back up to better levels. Sometimes it’s slow. There are times when we have to go and make our point.”
China introduced the rare earth export controls in April 2025 in retaliation for Donald Trump’s tariffs, and the controls reportedly continue to tightly restrict exports of some rare earths despite a deal last October in which the White House says Beijing agreed to allow shipments to freely flow.
See our quick explainer here on why rare earths are so important and have been a flashpoint in diplomacy and trade:
Greer was also asked on Bloomberg TV if the one-year trade truce with China expiring this October would be extended as a result of the Beijing summit. He responded:
Trump Xi Beijing summit
We’ll see about that … there’s certainly a willingness on both sides that – if this continues to work out well for each country – to continue that, and to extend this ability to make sure we’re getting rare earths, that we’re selling the types of things we should be selling to China, and we’re trying to manage differences rather than escalate them.”
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Trump says ‘a lot of different problems’ settled with Xi
Donald Trump just said his visit had been “incredible” and “I think a lot of good has come of it”.
“We’ve made some fantastic trade deals for both countries,” the US president said.
We’ve settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to solve.
Trump said his relationship with Xi Jinping was “a very strong one”.
Sitting beside Xi in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound, Trump also said:
We did discuss Iran. We feel very similar about [how] we want it to end. We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. We want the strait open.”
He also said that “we want them to get it ended because it’s a crazy thing there”.
Trump and Xi speaking in the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing. Photograph: China Pool/Getty Images
Key events
David Smith
Donald Trump has left China after a two-day summit with President Xi Jinping that failed to live up to the hype.
What will be remembered from this trip is Xi’s dark warning of “clashes and even conflicts” with the US if the status of Taiwan is not handled as he sees fit – and Trump’s failure to push back in even a subtle way.
Indeed, past US presidents have come to China with an approach reminiscent of Britain’s King Charles III’s recent visit to Washington: gracious and diplomatic but making some coded points about western democracy that were undeniable to those paying attention.
But Trump, a would-be strongman, crumbled in the presence of the real thing and was deferential throughout, using the word “beautiful” over and over. The only upside is that he did not alienate his hosts or blow up their fragile trade truce.
Trump achieved underwhelming deals for China to buy US oil, soybeans and 200 Boeing aircraft and claims to have agreed with Xi that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon – hardly a major revelation. The presence of his son Eric, who runs the family business, smacked of corruption, and it was not entirely clear what the accompanying tech titans achieved apart from Elon Musk gurning for the cameras.
Trump now returns to a world of domestic pain in the US, with his brief China vacation soon to be forgotten. But the symbolism for Xi and the watching world was unmistakable: a rising power in the east and a declining one in the west.
Trump departs Beijing after talks with Xi
Trump has now boarded Air Force One at Beijing Airport after spending around two hours in the Zhongnanhai leadership compound speaking and speaking privately with Xi Jinping.
The president was accompanied to the airport by Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi where a red carpet to awaited him, and sent off by dozens of schoolchildren, who waved American and Chinese flags and chanted “farewell” in unison.
President Donald Trump reacts as he walks towards Air Force One at Beijing Capital International Airport. Photograph: Evan Vucci/Reuters Photograph: Evan Vucci/Reuters
Summary
In case you’re just joining us, here’s a recap of the day’s events as Donald Trump and Xi Jinping wrap up the second and final day of talks in their much-anticipated two-day summit. It’s 2pm in Beijing.
The US president said “a lot of good” came from his China visit and “we’ve settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to solve”. “We’ve made some fantastic trade deals for both countries,” Trump said while sitting next to Xi in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound, where they were to hold their final talks of the summit.
Trump also said: “We did discuss Iran. We feel very similar about [how] we want it to end. We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. We want the strait open.”
Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in the walled-off Zhongnanhai compound in Beijing on Friday. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AFP/Getty Images
US secretary of state Marco Rubio said the US policy on Taiwan had “not changed”. “It’s been pretty consistent across multiple presidential administrations, and remains consistent now,” he told NBC News.
The White House said Trump and Xi had agreed during their talks on the need to keep the strait of Hormuz open. Trump said separately that his patience with Iran was running out, as a ship was reportedly seized by Iran off the United Arab Emirates. “I am not going to be much more patient,” Trump told Fox News. “They should make a deal.”
Trump also said hunting down Iran’s enriched uranium was primarily for political optics, after Israel demanded it as a goal. “I just feel better if I got it, actually, but it’s – I think, it’s more for public relations than it is for anything else,” Trump told Fox News from China.
US trade representative Jamieson Greer told Bloomberg TV the US believed China was being “very pragmatic” in respect to its involvement with Iran, and that he was confident Beijing would do whatever it could to limit material support for Tehran.
Greer also said an agreement for double-digit billions of dollars in agriculture sales to China was expected after the Beijing summit. Asked by Bloomberg if the year-long trade truce with China expiring this October would be extended as a result of the Beijing summit, he said: “We’ll see about that … there’s certainly a willingness on both sides that – if this continues to work out well for each country – to continue that…”
The US is hoping for a positive response from China on Washington’s appeals for the release of jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai and others, Marco Rubio told NBC.
Asian stocks mostly retreated on Friday as investors watched for developments from the Trump-Xi summit and the Iran war.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.2% after rising earlier in the day. South Korea’s Kospi lost 3.2%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 0.9%, the Shanghai Composite index edged up 0.1% and Australia’s S+P/ASX 200 dipped 0.1%.
Taiwan’s Taiex traded 0.5% lower and India’s Sensex was up 0.1%.
While there is optimism over US-China relations, some analysts are suggesting any deals should be viewed cautiously, the AP reports.
“Headline deals should be looked at with a healthy degree of scepticism,” wrote Leahy Fahy and Julian Evans-Pritchard, China economists at Capital Economics, in a Friday note.
A number of the promised projects and investments that came out of US-China deals from Donald Trump’s last China visit in 2017 did not end up materialising, they said, as tensions between Washington and Beijing elevated rapidly during the few years after that.
Oil prices climbed early on Friday amid the stalled US-Iran talks over the war, with brent crude – the international standard – 1.3% higher at $107.06 per barrel.
How Trump is spending last hours of the summit
Amy Hawkins
Donald Trump’s final hours in Beijing are being spent in Xi Jinping’s private residence, a secretive site near the Forbidden City that few foreigners – or even locals – will ever get a glimpse of.
The US president will have lunch there with Xi before leaving Beijing in the early afternoon, less than 48 hours after he landed.
Xi and Trump during a a tour of the Zhongnanhai gardens. Photograph: China Pool/Getty Images
At a busy intersection near Trump’s hotel, the crowds that gathered to catch a glimpse of the presidential motorcade were thinner on Friday morning than on Thursday evening, with the heavy police presence encouraging people not to loiter. Many grumbled about the inconvenience caused by the repeated road closures.
Asked for their views on Trump, the word that came up again and again from Beijingers was “unpredictable”.
“What he says isn’t necessarily what it means,” said one Trump-watcher, who declined to give his name.
As Trump and Xi hold their final talks in Beijing, the White House has shared the list of participants for the meetings.
Trump is joined by David Purdue, the US ambassador to China; secretary of state Marco Rubio; treasury secretary Scott Bessent; defense secretary Pete Hegseth and US trade representative Jamieson Greer.
Xi is joined by Xie Feng, China’s ambassador to the US; Cai Qi, a director of the central committee of the Communist party of China; foreign affairs minister Wang Yi; deputy foreign affairs minister Ma Zhaoxu; and He Lifeng, vice-premier of the state council.
Trump and Xi after visiting Zhongnanhai gardens. Photograph: China Pool/Getty Images
According to the Associated Press, Donald Trump did something highly unusual for him over the two days of meetings with Xi: he held his tongue in front of the media.
Trump relishes taking reporters’ questions, often doing so nearly every day in the US.
But Xi, like most China’s senior leadership, refrains from press conferences.
Trump and Xi tour the Zhongnanhai leadership compound. Photograph: China Pool/Getty Images
In what might have been deference to Xi, Trump didn’t answer questions when reporters asked them while the pair toured the Temple of Heaven on Thursday.
And he didn’t do so again on Friday while walking with Xi at Zhongnanhai.
Trump says he ‘won’t be much more patient’ with Iran
Returning now to Trump’s earlier comments on Iran, the US president said his patience with Iran was running out after he discussed the war with Xi Jinping on Thursday.
The White House said Trump and Xi had agreed during their summit talks on the need to keep the strait of Hormuz open.
“I am not going to be much more patient,” Trump told Fox News’ Hannity program in an interview. “They should make a deal.”
In the latest incidents in the strait of Hormuz, an Indian cargo vessel carrying livestock from Africa to the UAE was sunk on Wednesday in waters off the coast of Oman.
India condemned the attack and said all 14 crew had been rescued by the Omani coast guard.
Vanguard, a British maritime security advisory firm, said the vessel was believed to have been hit by a missile or drone which caused an explosion.
Before they sat together, Trump and Xi spent about 10 minutes walking in the gardens of the Zhongnanhai compound.
“These are the most beautiful roses anyone has ever seen,” Trump reportedly said while walking past green columns and archways.
Xi later said he would send some rose seeds to Trump “as a gift”.
Xi and Trump at Zhongnanhai in Beijing. Photograph: Mark Schiefelbein/AFP/Getty Images
Trump says ‘a lot of different problems’ settled with Xi
Donald Trump just said his visit had been “incredible” and “I think a lot of good has come of it”.
“We’ve made some fantastic trade deals for both countries,” the US president said.
We’ve settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to solve.
Trump said his relationship with Xi Jinping was “a very strong one”.
Sitting beside Xi in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound, Trump also said:
We did discuss Iran. We feel very similar about [how] we want it to end. We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. We want the strait open.”
He also said that “we want them to get it ended because it’s a crazy thing there”.
Trump and Xi speaking in the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing. Photograph: China Pool/Getty Images
Xi Jinping and Donald Trump are now sitting together in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound complex and Xi is speaking.
Trump says getting Iran’s enriched uranium ‘more for public relations’
Before these final meetings of the Beijing summit, Donald Trump suggested that hunting down Iran’s enriched uranium was primarily for political optics, after Israel demanded it as a goal.
“I just feel better if I got it, actually, but it’s – I think, it’s more for public relations than it is for anything else,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity in an interview from China.
“The other thing we could do is bomb it again,” Trump said. “But I, just, I would feel better getting it, and we will get it.”
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who alongside Trump ordered the attacks on Iran that began on 28 February, said in a recent interview that the war was “not over” because the sensitive nuclear material “has to be taken out” of the country, Agence France-Presse reports.
Iran has not confirmed the location of its highly enriched uranium, which some experts believe could be buried deep underground, making the task of seizing it prohibitively difficult without precise intelligence.
Trump, in a social media post on Friday referring to his second administration’s achievements, said they included “the military decimation of Iran (to be continued!)”.
Xi and Trump meet at Chinese leadership compound
Donald Trump has reportedly arrived at Beijing’s Zhongnanhai complex – China’s leadership compound – for a meeting with Xi Jinping.
The two leaders are set to pose together in the gardens of the walled-off compound – next to the Chinese capital’s Forbidden City – and then have a working tea and a closed-door lunch.
Afterwards their two-day summit wraps up and the US president is to leave China for Washington on Friday afternoon.
Donald Trump after Xi Jinping greets him at the Zhongnanhai garden in Beijing on Friday. Photograph: Evan Vucci/Reuters
The US trade representative also said rare earth exports from China to the US were improving but Beijing was still slow to approve some shipments.
Jamieson Greer told Bloomberg TV that China was still dragging its feet with some export licenses and US officials had to intervene on the behalf of affected companies.
“I would give them a passing grade on this,” he said in the interview.
We’ve certainly seen the rare earths come back up to better levels. Sometimes it’s slow. There are times when we have to go and make our point.”
China introduced the rare earth export controls in April 2025 in retaliation for Donald Trump’s tariffs, and the controls reportedly continue to tightly restrict exports of some rare earths despite a deal last October in which the White House says Beijing agreed to allow shipments to freely flow.
See our quick explainer here on why rare earths are so important and have been a flashpoint in diplomacy and trade:
Greer was also asked on Bloomberg TV if the one-year trade truce with China expiring this October would be extended as a result of the Beijing summit. He responded:
We’ll see about that … there’s certainly a willingness on both sides that – if this continues to work out well for each country – to continue that, and to extend this ability to make sure we’re getting rare earths, that we’re selling the types of things we should be selling to China, and we’re trying to manage differences rather than escalate them.”
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