For Trump in China, a tonal shift yields few results
BEIJING — A conciliatory President Trump hailed the success of his state visit to China on Friday, affirming a change in tone with Xi Jinping despite leaving Beijing with few concrete achievements.
The visual spectacle surrounding Trump’s visit was seen as a breakthrough by both sides, who expressed eagerness to enter negotiations to emerge from a years-long period of deteriorating relations.
But the U.S. delegation boarded Air Force One Friday afternoon with few other outcomes from a summit the president had touted for weeks as a historic event.
Trump’s deference to Xi was a striking display of an authoritarian president adapting to a new power dynamic, an acknowledgment of China’s rise and its emerging role in the world.
He has deployed a charm offensive throughout his time here, confident in the impact of his personal touch on world leaders, often seen patting Xi on the back and repeatedly calling him his friend.
Yet privately, tensions have pervaded the negotiations that touched nearly every major issue on Trump’s agenda, from trade relations to the U.S. war in Iran.
“He’s only interested in business,” Trump said from Beijing in an interview with Fox.
China has agreed to buy 200 Boeing planes and spend billions on U.S. agricultural products, U.S. officials said — modest deals that fail to return Chinese investment levels to their pre-2025 peaks, before Trump launched a trade war that has aggressively targeted Beijing.
Nonetheless, Trump called the trade deals “fantastic” and said Xi was also committed to buying American energy in the future. Beijing has not confirmed any such deal.
China’s Foreign Ministry has also not commented on any commitment to helping the United States reopen the Strait of Hormuz, effectively closed by Iran since the Trump administration launched a war against the Islamic Republic earlier this year.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Trump participate in a friendship walk at Zhongnanhai Garden on Friday in Beijing.
(Evan Vucci / Piscine / Reuters via Associated Press)
“We feel the same way about Iran, we want it to stop,” Trump said Friday. “We don’t want them to have nuclear weapons. We want the strait open, and we want them to end it, because it’s a crazy thing – they’re a little crazy.”
At the start of the summit, Xi warned the Trump administration that the U.S. stance of strategic ambiguity toward Taiwan had put the two nations on a collision course, Chinese state media reported. But as he left Beijing, Marco Rubio, the president’s national security adviser and secretary of state, said Washington’s position on Taiwan remained “unchanged.”
Their second day of meetings was held in Zhongnanhai, a region of imperial gardens and lakes that has served as the Chinese Communist Party’s secret seat of power since the 1949 revolution.
The two men walked leisurely paths dotted with Chinese roses and ornamental archways before enjoying tea and lunch in Xi’s private quarters. Trump was offered rose seeds to take home for the White House rose garden, the Chinese said.
“This has been an incredible visit,” Trump told reporters at the venue. “A lot of good came out of it. »
It was not the first time that Xi received a president at this historic complex. In 2014, the Chinese leader, still relatively new to the presidency, hosted President Obama overnight in Zhongnanhai, where the two men met privately over dinner.
President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping visit Zhongnanhai Garden.
(Evan Vucci/Pool/Getty Images)
It was another smoggy day for Trump in the Chinese capital, although cooler than Thursday, when Xi greeted Trump on the steps of Tiananmen Square with a lavish state welcome. There, Xi hosted Trump and his delegation at the Great Hall of the People for a day of meetings and a banquet dinner of Peking duck and pan-fried pork buns.
The two will have future opportunities to meet, with Trump inviting Xi to Washington for a state visit to the White House in September.
“He’s a man I respect enormously,” Trump said.
