Washington, Sept 24: Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping have no shortage of difficult issues to cover when they sit down for talks on Thursday at the White House.
China has resisted the Trump administration’s urgings — and economic threats — to use its considerable leverage to prod Iran to agree to US terms to end the nearly seven-month war. Xi wants to see Trump permanently halt arms sales to Taiwan and loosen export restrictions on cutting-edge advanced chips. The two sides on Wednesday agreed to extend by two months a one-year trade truce that was set to expire Nov. 10 as they work to find a more durable agreement.
All the while, both leaders seem to believe that time is on their side as they look to outmanoeuvre the other in what is expected to be the world’s most significant economic and national security competition for years to come.
“The president very much believes that over time the US economy is going to grow, the US will get stronger, the US will keep making advances in AI and on technology, and that … the US will develop alternative sources of critical minerals and rare earths,” said Edgard Kagan, a former US ambassador to Malaysia who is now at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “I think when Xi Jinping sits down with Donald Trump, he very much believes the US is in hurtling decline and that time is on China’s side.”
The president said Thursday in a social media post that artificial intelligence — “superintelligence” as he is trying to rebrand it — will be high on the agenda amid growing global anxiety that the technology will kill jobs or potentially even wipe out humanity.
“I want to leave it exactly where it is,” Trump wrote. “That is China’s position also.”
Trump has made clear he wants to impress Xi with the visit. The Republican president made sure construction of a new helicopter landing pad on the White House’s South Lawn was completed before the visit, and he met Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, on Wednesday evening when they flew into Joint Base Andrews outside Washington.
Trump has lamented that his planned White House ballroom is not being ready for the state dinner in Xi’s honour on Thursday evening.
That black-tie event will be held in the White House East Room, featuring décor that “draws on the colour red’s longstanding cultural significance throughout Chinese history,” according to First Lady Melania Trump.
Dinner will begin with a toast honouring the historic “Toast to Peace” between President Richard Nixon and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in Beijing in 1972.
The guest list includes Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, among other tech titans staking out positions on whether more safeguards are needed in the race to develop artificial intelligence.
US and China still have work to do on trade truce
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the two leaders may be open to a new “notification mechanism” for AI incidents that could affect national security. But on AI and a host of other thorny issues, it remains unclear whether the leaders can make progress.
Shortly after Xi’s arrival in Washington, Bessent announced on Fox News that the two sides had come to terms on extending the trade truce, forged last year in South Korea. He said it is possible that Trump and Xi could come to a larger agreement by January or just decide to once again extend it further.
Trump and Xi certainly have incentive to keep the truce alive.
Trump’s Republican Party is facing headwinds as they try to maintain control of Congress in November’s midterm elections and can hardly afford further economic disruption. Meanwhile, Xi is navigating an uneven Chinese economy — one in which its domestic economy is struggling while its high-tech exports remain strong.
Peak baseline US tariffs reached 145 per cent during last year’s trade battle — matched by China’s reciprocal levies of 125 per cent. After Trump and Xi met in South Korea last year, the average US tariff rate fell to roughly 47 per cent, while China charged an average in the mid-30s. But in February, the US Supreme Court overturned many of Trump’s tariffs, causing the taxes on Chinese goods to have more variation.
The stopgap announced by Bessent was shorter than what both sides had suggested in recent weeks.
The Chinese side had indicated that they wanted to see the trade truce extended until the end of Trump’s term in January 2029.
Meanwhile, Trump administration officials had suggested a three- to six-month extension as a more appropriate time frame because China has been slow to fulfil past commitments on rare earth exports as well as imports of US soybeans and aircraft. (AP)
