US President Donald Trump (r) is greeted by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, May 14, 2026. Trump’s trip will focus on trade, regional security and strengthening bilateral ties between the world’s two largest economies.
China Pool | Getty Images News | Getty Images
BEIJING – U.S. President Donald Trump met his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing on Thursday morning, kicking off a high-level summit expected to cover trade, tariffs, Taiwan and Iran and running through Friday.
The relationship between the two countries will be “better than ever,” Trump told Xi in his opening speech, according to official radio recordings. Trump, who also visited China in his first term in 2017, said the two leaders have known each other personally longer than any other U.S. or Chinese president.
Shortly before Trump, Xi noted the global attention on the meeting and said a key question for the two countries was whether they could avoid the “Thucydides trap,” according to an official English translation of his Chinese remarks broadcast by CCTV.
The Thucydides Trap refers to how tensions between a rising power and a ruling power have often led to war in the past. Graham Allison, the Harvard professor who popularized the concept, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” that he expects the trade truce reached by Trump and Xi when they met in South Korea last fall to become a formal agreement.
“The big word will be stabilization,” Allison said Thursday.
The two presidents concluded their first meeting after about an hour, including a welcoming ceremony, and are expected to hold several talks until midday Friday.
Trump is expected to visit the Temple of Heaven, a historic landmark, in the afternoon and attend a state banquet in the evening.
“China enters this meeting much more confident than it did in 2017, when it feared even a small increase in U.S. tariffs. Last year, Xi was able to push back and neutralize much of Trump’s actions,” said Scott Kennedy, senior adviser and board of trustees for Chinese business and economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
China became the first major economy to retaliate against Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs in April 2025.
Read more coverage of the Trump-Xi meeting
“Although expectations are low and no major deal is likely, the welcoming ceremony and opening remarks at the opening session underscore how consequential this relationship is for the world,” Kennedy said. “That’s why everyone is paying attention and waiting to see what they will discuss and decide on trade and security issues.”
Xi is expected to reciprocate Trump’s trip with a visit to the United States. The two heads of state and government could also meet at the end of the year as part of APEC and G20 events in China and the USA.
Earlier on Thursday, according to official broadcast footage, Xi walked down the stairs of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing to shake Trump’s hand. The US President first shook hands with Chinese officials, then Xi welcomed the US delegation.
China’s top diplomat Wang Yi and Zheng Shanjie, head of the economic planning agency, were among the Chinese representatives, the footage showed.
The US contingent included Secretary of State Marco Rubio and business leaders such as Teslais Elon Musk, Appleis Tim Cook and NvidiaThis is Jensen Huang. Pictures of the first Xi-Trump meeting also showed that US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and his Chinese counterpart Dong Jun were also present.
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