U.S. Treasury chief: "Tariff truce extended two months"; Trump waits an hour, greets Xi on the tarmac with full honors
In a Fox News interview on Oct. 23, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said of his meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng ahead of the summit: "We agreed to extend what is known as the 'Busan agreement,' the economic accord between the United States and China that was set to expire on Nov. 10," adding that the extension runs two months. The Busan agreement refers to what Trump and Xi agreed at their summit in Busan on Oct. 30 last year, held on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province. At the time, the two leaders agreed to suspend for one year, until Nov. 10 this year, the tariffs of 145% that the U.S. had imposed on China and the 125% China had imposed on the U.S. With the truce deadline approaching, Bessent, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and He met on Oct. 20 at JPMorgan's headquarters in Manhattan and on Oct. 23 at World Bank headquarters in Washington to discuss an extension in advance. The two-month truce is far shorter than major foreign media had initially expected. Most reported that the U.S. wanted an extension of six months to a year, while China sought one lasting through the end of Trump's term.
Explaining the two-month extension, Bessent said it was "to buy more time to see what we can do on the economic front." Asked about the prospects of a larger deal within two months, he said: "It's not even certain that we will extend the current agreement as is," adding, "There was a commitment to buy about $17 billion worth of soybeans and other agricultural products, and China has not fully carried it out." Asked about the summit's substantive results, Bessent cited the launch of a bilateral trade commission to negotiate the removal of tariffs on $30 billion each of non-sensitive goods and Chinese purchases of U.S. farm products, then added: "I believe China will also agree to our proposal to set up a 'hotline' to notify each other when an AI-related incident occurs."
Xi received treatment that was unprecedented by any measure. Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, landed at Joint Base Andrews near Washington aboard his official aircraft at about 5:40 p.m. on Oct. 23, and Trump and first lady Melania Trump were waiting on the tarmac to greet them. When Trump arrived at Beijing Capital International Airport on May 13, it was Vice President Han Zheng, not Xi, who served as the welcoming representative. It was only the second time in Trump's second term that he personally went to an airport to greet a foreign leader, after Russian President Vladimir Putin's arrival at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska on Aug. 15 last year.
Trump and Melania left the White House aboard the presidential helicopter Marine One at about 4:43 p.m. on Oct. 23, roughly an hour before Xi's arrival, and reached the base 11 minutes later at 4:54 p.m. Xi stepped off his plane onto a red carpet lined by a 21-member joint U.S. military honor guard. The Xis received bouquets from a boy and a girl and listened to both national anthems performed by the U.S. Air Force band. A cannon salute was fired as the anthems played, and two U.S. B-1 bombers flew overhead.
It was Xi's first state visit to the United States in 11 years, since September 2015 under then-President Barack Obama. His last visit of any kind came three years ago, when he attended the APEC summit in San Francisco in November 2023. Since returning to office, Trump has met Xi in Busan last October and in Beijing in May. Xi's trip was framed as a reciprocal visit for Trump's trip to China in May.
Unusually, China reported more actively; Xi says U.S. should "oppose Taiwanese independence," recalls fight against "Japanese militarist aggressors"
Delivering remarks at the state welcoming ceremony for Xi at the White House on Oct. 24, Trump led with "superintelligence," the term he has recently been promoting as a replacement for AI amid debates over existential risk and slowing development. "We will discuss urgent issues involving security, technology and superintelligence," Trump said. "The decisions we make in this area can advance peace and prosperity for decades." Xi responded in his own remarks: "Both the United States and China are AI powers, with the ability and the responsibility to develop and regulate AI well," adding that "AI development must always remain under human control and make people happy." The comment reflected somewhat different interests — a U.S. slowdown in AI development would hardly hurt China, the later entrant. After four meetings with Trump over three days, Xi visited the National Archives and Records Administration on Oct. 25 before departing for home from Joint Base Andrews.
Unlike the previous two summits, China this time was — for whatever reason — more forthcoming than the United States in publicizing the outcome. China's state-run Xinhua News Agency and China Central Television reported that the Oct. 24 summit covered a wide range of topics, including economics and trade, geopolitical security issues involving the Korean Peninsula, Taiwan, Iran and Ukraine, and AI safety. According to those reports, Xi said of trade friction that "the two sides' economic and trade teams have reached a new common understanding," and that "the U.S. side should adhere to the correct position of opposing Taiwanese independence and handle the matter prudently." That went beyond former President Joe Biden's declaration that the U.S. "does not support" Taiwanese independence, asking Trump to state opposition to it. On the Middle East, Xi urged that "the United States and Iran should resolve the issue through negotiations." On AI, he said: "Competition exists, but cooperation is also possible, so rather than guarding against and defending from each other, each should play to its strengths."
Xi's remarks as relayed by Chinese media also included much that was diplomatically and militarily sensitive. On Taiwan, Xi told Trump that "China's position on defending national unification and territorial integrity is very clear," adding that "more than 50 years ago, 'ping-pong diplomacy' between China and the United States knocked open a door to exchange that had long been firmly shut." Taking aim at Japan, he said: "More than 80 years ago, the peoples of our two countries fought shoulder to shoulder against the Japanese militarist aggressors," stressing that "this friendship, forged in blood and fire, must be passed down through the generations." The remarks invoked memories of World War II, when the United States, China and the Soviet Union formed an Allied front to defeat the Axis powers of Germany, Japan and Italy. Analysts read it as a warning against closer U.S.-Japan ties, given the deterioration in China-Japan relations since the Sanae Takaichi cabinet took office last year.
On Oct. 25, Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social that "the meetings with President Xi were highly productive for both the United States and China, and tremendous things are going to happen." Over tea with Xi at the White House the same day, Trump said, "We made tremendous progress, very positive for both countries," without specifying details. At the National Archives, he told reporters only that it was "a great meeting for the farmers and great for everybody," adding: "We discussed Iran in my meeting with President Xi, and on the Strait of Hormuz, we're going to do very well." Most of his comments amounted to little more than diplomatic boilerplate that everything had gone well.
Greer said on CNBC on Oct. 25 that trade talks with China held around the summit had made progress, and the White House disclosed specific tariff-reduction items for both countries on Oct. 28. Still, Greer said: "America's cutting-edge semiconductor technology is our most precious asset and the means by which we stay ahead in the race for superintelligence or AI," adding that "there was almost no discussion of that in these talks."
U.S. leaves out Taiwan, China omits rare earths; no Chinese executives attend, no deal on North Korean denuclearization
The White House published a fact sheet on its website on Oct. 25, saying, "The two leaders agreed to use the term superintelligence instead of AI," and that "the two leaders agreed that Iran must never possess nuclear weapons, and that no country or entity should impose tolls on international waterways." The White House also said, "President Trump and President Xi discussed ways to advance peace and prosperity in order to boost confidence among businesses and consumers worldwide," adding that "the two countries agreed to build a constructive relationship for strategic stability based on respect, fairness and reciprocity."
China, through Xinhua on Oct. 26, said the two sides had agreed "to build a constructive China-U.S. relationship of strategic stability based on respect, fairness and equality," and announced "eight major outcomes" from the summit. It added the phrase "respect, fairness and equality" to the "constructive strategic stability relationship" language used at the May summit.
According to documents released by the USTR and China's Ministry of Commerce on Oct. 28, the two sides agreed to extend the tariff truce by two months, to Jan. 10. They also listed as shared outcomes a plan to apply lower tariffs to $30 billion (about 41 trillion won) each in non-sensitive goods and the activation of a bilateral trade and investment commission. Items covered by the tariff cuts include U.S. farm products and coal and Chinese toys and home appliances. More than 90% of them will be granted most-favored-nation rates with tariffs eliminated entirely, but U.S. soybeans — a focus of attention — were absent from the list. The next round of AI talks will be held before the end of November.
For all the fanfare of the itinerary, the United States and China began speaking with different voices once Xi departed. The White House fact sheet said "the two sides are continuing consultations to address U.S. concerns about shortages in critical mineral supply chains, including rare earths, with the goal of restoring adequate supply volumes," but China omitted the rare-earth issue from its list of outcomes entirely. On AI, the two agreed only to establish a hotline, leaving out concrete measures such as common norms. Contrary to the White House account, China's announcement did not use the term superintelligence, sticking with AI. The White House fact sheet also made no mention of Taiwan. On Russia and North Korea, the White House said the leaders "discussed" them, while the Chinese side did not mention either country at all.
U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue said on CNBC on Oct. 25: "We made very clear to the Chinese side weeks ago that any support provided to Iran — whether intelligence, components or military equipment — is completely unacceptable," adding that "President Trump made that position very clear once again to President Xi on Oct. 24." Perdue even added that "at one point President Trump asked President Xi whether he'd like to buy weapons."
In response, Vice President Han, speaking in the general debate at the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Oct. 26, appeared to criticize Washington, saying, "China's position is that the sovereignty and security of Middle Eastern countries, including those in the Gulf, must be respected." Without naming the United States, Han also said, "Major countries bear a special responsibility for safeguarding international peace and security," and pressed that "China urges the country concerned to immediately halt its military threats against Cuba and to immediately and fully lift the blockade and sanctions against Cuba." The United States has recently ratcheted up economic pressure by restricting oil supplies to Cuba.
The White House fact sheet also left out North Korean denuclearization, another closely watched issue. The sentence included after the May summit in Beijing — "President Trump and President Xi affirmed the shared goal of North Korea's denuclearization" — disappeared, replaced by language noting only that they "discussed North Korea." Trump is counting on Xi to play a mediating role so he can meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un again on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Shenzhen in November. That suggests denuclearization may have been dropped with an eye toward talks with Kim.
Republicans grumble at "imperial" protocol, Japan unsettled by "aggressors" remark; taut "stability" limits market impact
Another notable feature of the visit was that not a single Chinese business executive attended the Oct. 24 state dinner. That stood in sharp contrast with the U.S. turnout, which included a host of Big Tech chiefs: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang; OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman; SpaceX CEO Elon Musk; Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg; Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai; Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella; Amazon Chairman Jeff Bezos; AMD CEO Lisa Su; Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra; and Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon. Also seated at the dinner were JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet and General Motors CEO Mary Barra.
From China, only senior government figures were invited: Xi and his wife, Politburo Standing Committee member Cai Qi, Central Foreign Affairs Office Director and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and Vice Premier He. The New York Times suggested a likely obstacle was that many of China's major tech firms are on U.S. sanctions lists over ties to the Chinese military, among other reasons. In his welcoming-ceremony remarks, Xi said China "welcomes investment by American companies," while urging that "we hope the United States treats Chinese companies fairly."
The lavish protocol Trump accorded Xi drew sharp complaints even within the Republican Party, since it was hardly a scene any American voter would relish ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, a leading GOP hawk, said critically that "the president might have asked once about the purpose of China's massive military buildup or its evident support for Iran." Republican Sen. Thom Tillis also jabbed: "Go to a MAGA rally and see how loudly people cheered when the president said he would stand up to China."
Japan's government could not hide its consternation at Xi's characterization of the United States and China as wartime allies, a reading of history that could easily be used in Chinese propaganda targeting Tokyo. Prime Minister Takaichi held a news conference at her official residence on the night of Oct. 26, saying she had "exchanged views with President Trump, focused on the range of China-related issues including the economy and security, and confirmed U.S.-Japan coordination," and stressed that "I told him the United States and Japan have now become each other's most trusted allies."
Diplomats also took note that the two countries chose to meet in Washington during the U.N. General Assembly. It symbolized how far the United Nations' standing has fallen that the two most powerful of the Security Council's five permanent members could ignore the assembly. When Xi held a summit with Obama in Washington in 2015, he went on to New York to attend the General Assembly.
Washington and Beijing now appear set to continue negotiations around the APEC summit in Shenzhen in November and the G20 summit in Miami in December — by which time both the Chinese Communist Party's fifth plenary session of the 20th Central Committee, set for Nov. 26-29, and the U.S. midterm elections will be over. China's Foreign Ministry said "the two sides agreed to support each other's successful hosting of the APEC and G20 summits, and the two leaders intend to attend the meetings hosted by the other." The U.S. fact sheet likewise noted that "the two leaders are willing to attend each other's summits."
With the summit again ending without a "big deal," it appears to have reconfirmed that neither country wants a new round of conflict. Narrowing their differences is likely to remain difficult until the axis of trade competition tilts sharply one way. With Trump and Xi again opting for "stability," the impact of U.S.-China rivalry on financial markets has also been contained. Indeed, New York stocks on Oct. 28 were little affected by the summit's outcome, falling across the board instead on Washington's rejection of Iran's offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days.
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