China Visit: Trump and Xi Exchange Honors; Taiwan and Tariffs Wait – Complete Video

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WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 — President Trump spent three days this week entertaining President Xi Jinping of China as an honored guest, from a greeting on the airfield Wednesday evening to a state dinner Thursday night and a last round of courtesies today. The visit was rich in ceremony and poor in signed bargains. The two men praised each other in public, put off their sharpest arguments, and sent the Chinese party home with an eagle statue and two extra months on a trade truce.

Mr. Xi’s aircraft landed at Joint Base Andrews at 5:40 p.m. Wednesday. Mr. Trump and Mrs. Melania Trump were waiting at the foot of the stairs, which is not the usual practice. A red carpet had been stretched a hundred feet across the concrete. Soldiers stood in ranks. Two B-1 bombers flew over. Mr. Trump removed a glove, shook hands with Mr. Xi and with Mrs. Peng Liyuan, and struck the Chinese president lightly on the back.

While that scene was still being played, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington and Peking had agreed to keep their present trade truce in force until Jan. 10. It had been due to expire in November. Mr. Bessent said the extension would give the two governments more time to bargain.

Thursday was the formal day. There was another red carpet on the South Lawn, another review of troops, and another flight of aircraft. The presidents then spoke before going into the Oval Office.

Mr. Trump dwelt on friendship. “From the time of my first election in 2016, President Xi and I have forged a friendship — a truly great friendship, actually — built on mutual respect and the vital interests of our people,” he said. He added that choices on security and technology “can promote peace and prosperity for decades and decades to come.”

Mr. Xi, speaking through an interpreter, said he had come “to carry on our friendship, expand cooperation, and promote the well-being of both our peoples.” He recalled Mr. Trump’s journey to China in May and said the two had then agreed to seek what he called “a constructive China-U.S. relationship of strategic stability.”

“I am ready to work with you to steer the giant ship of China-U.S. relationship on a steady course toward the future,” he said.

He asked for fair treatment of Chinese firms in the United States and said American companies were welcome in China. On computing machines that imitate human thought, he said both nations “have both the capability and responsibility to develop and manage AI for good, and ensure that the development of AI is always under human control.”

He then turned to a warning that has hung over talk of America and China for years. It is called the Thucydides Trap, after the Greek historian Thucydides, who wrote that Sparta went to war with Athens because Athens was rising and Sparta was afraid. Modern writers use the phrase for the fear that a new power and an old power will be pushed into the same kind of fight. Mr. Xi named the danger and then said it was not destiny. “China and the United States must hold the line of no conflict and no confrontation between us,” he said. “The Thucydides Trap can be overcome.”

He said China would invite 100,000 young Americans to visit in the next five years and that two pandas, Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, would soon go to the zoo in Atlanta.

The private conference that followed was not opened to the press. Chinese accounts said Mr. Xi asked the United States to treat the Taiwan question “with caution” and to oppose independence for the island. American officials issued no statement saying Mr. Trump had adopted those words. The government in Taipei, which was not present, later accused Mr. Xi of distorting the record.

When the presidents reappeared, correspondents called out questions on Taiwan and other disputes. Mr. Trump did not reply. He said Mr. Xi “loves good granite,” walked him to a new helicopter pad, and summed up the session in three words: “Great meeting.”

The state dinner was held Thursday evening. Sea bass and Chinese greens were served in a meal that acknowledged both cultures. Tech leaders such as Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos attended. President Trump acknowledged that if his ballroom was ready he would be able to host more than the few who attended. He also led guest on an impromptu tour of the facility.

Mr. Trump told the guests that the two governments were not built on the same plan. “As the leaders of our two nations, President Xi and I both understand that we represent different systems, but the ties between our people endure, and we’ve never gotten along better,” he said. “Together, we can continue to build a relationship that promotes prosperity and security for future generations.”

He gave Mr. Xi a sculpture of a bald eagle. “The bald eagle is a national symbol of the United States and an embodiment of the free and soaring spirit of America,” Mr. Trump said. “We hope it’ll find a nice place, a wonderful place in Beijing.”

He then invited the company to look, after the music, at the ballroom he is building on the grounds.

Mr. Xi thanked his hosts and said the arrangements had been made “with meticulous care.” He noted that Chinese families were celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival and wished the room well.

He went back over two centuries of contact: early trade, porcelain collected by George Washington, Chinese and American soldiers in the war against Japan, and the table-tennis matches that helped reopen relations in President Nixon’s time. “Such a friendship, forged in blood and fire, will surely live on through the generations,” he said of the wartime years.

Of Thursday’s conversation he said only that the two men “had sincere and in-depth exchanges and reached common understanding on many issues.” He did not name the issues.

He closed by setting the two national ambitions next to each other. “President Trump has pledged to make America great again and led the American people in making significant strides. China is committed to achieving great national rejuvenation,” Mr. Xi said. “These two goals are both ambitious and can surely be mutually reinforcing.”

“Like a river that never stops flowing, history never stands still,” he went on. “Together, let us nurture the beautiful flowers of China-U.S. friendship. Together, let us write a new chapter in our friendly relations.”

He drank to the health of the President and Mrs. Trump, to both countries, and to “the friendship between our two peoples.”

Today the two couples are scheduled to take tea at the White House and visit the National Archives, where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are kept, before they return to Andrews for the flight home.

No new commercial treaty was published. No change in the American position on Taiwan was announced from the White House. What the week did produce was a public effort by both presidents to treat the other as a partner for a few days, and to leave the hardest business for another time.