Beijing (AFP) – US President Donald Trump said he had made “fantastic trade deals” and settled “a lot of different problems” in his meetings with China’s Xi Jinping this week, but hours after the summit ended on Friday, details on exact agreements remained scarce. Trump had arrived in Beijing seeking to seal accords in sectors including agriculture, aviation, and artificial intelligence, as well as to contain differences between the two sides in a number of tense geostrategic areas.
After the first day wrapped, Trump said Xi had agreed to help open the Strait of Hormuz, as well as buy Boeing jets and more American oil and soybeans. However, there have been no formal announcements, and the Chinese foreign ministry would not confirm or deny Trump’s statements when asked on Friday afternoon. The reserve on the Chinese side echoes the tone of the summit as a whole, where Trump’s overtures to Xi — whom he described as a “great leader” and “friend” — were met with more muted tones by Beijing. However, the US leader said Friday, “a lot of good” had come out of the visit.
“We’ve made some fantastic trade deals, great for both countries,” he said after a walk with Xi among the rosebushes in the gardens of Zhongnanhai, a central leadership compound next to Beijing’s Forbidden City. “We’ve settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to solve,” Trump added, without providing specifics. Xi, who promised to send Trump seeds for the White House Rose Garden, said it was a “milestone visit”. He stated that the two sides had to date established “a new bilateral relationship, which is a relationship of constructive strategic stability”.
On the streets of the capital, reaction to the talks was tepid. “This meeting could be considered a success — though, to be honest, none of us really had very high expectations to begin with,” Zhang Yong, a 46-year-old IT worker, told AFP.
In an interview with Fox News after the summit’s first day, Trump said Xi had agreed to several US wishlist points. On the topic of the war in Iran, the US president said Xi had effectively assured his counterpart that China was not preparing to militarily aid Tehran, which has essentially closed the Strait of Hormuz. “He’d like to see the Hormuz Strait open, and said ‘if I can be of any help whatsoever, I would like to help’,” Trump said. The Chinese foreign ministry on Friday released a statement on Iran calling for “a comprehensive and lasting ceasefire”. “Shipping lanes should be reopened as soon as possible,” it added.
At a regular press briefing later, a ministry spokesman did not comment when asked if Xi had said China would help with that process. In the Fox interview, Trump said one big business deal struck involved Xi agreeing to purchase “200 big” Boeing jets. En route home on Air Force One, he added that the deal included “a promise of 750 planes, which will be by far the largest order ever, if they do a good job with the 200”. The president also said Beijing had “agreed it wanted to buy” US oil and expressed interest in buying American soybeans. China, which is the key foreign customer of Iranian oil, bought small amounts of US oil before Trump imposed tariffs last year. It has sharply slowed down purchases of US soybeans, turning instead to Brazil.
China’s foreign ministry again did not confirm or deny the details mentioned by Trump. No announcements were made regarding the advanced Nvidia chips used in artificial intelligence, even though CEO Jensen Huang was among business leaders in Trump’s business delegation. Chinese tech firms are barred from purchasing Nvidia’s most cutting-edge chips, under US export rules that Washington says are to protect national security. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC that there was discussion about setting up “guardrails” for the use of AI, adding that the world’s “two AI superpowers are going to start talking”.
The summit began Thursday with a blunt warning from Xi on a longstanding geopolitical flashpoint, Taiwan. Shortly after talks started, Chinese state media reported Xi had told Trump that missteps on the sensitive issue of Taiwan could push their two countries into “conflict”. On Air Force One on Friday, Trump told reporters he and Xi “talked a lot about Taiwan”. “He does not want to see a fight for independence,” he said. “I didn’t make a comment on it, I heard him out.” On Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said “US policy on the issue of Taiwan is unchanged”.
Xi and Trump had lunch together on Friday before the latter left for the airport. As the US president went to board Air Force One, he pumped his fist in the air twice. “In terms of substance, I do not think there have been major surprises,” The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Yue Su told AFP. The new description of bilateral ties outlined by Xi “should be seen as a positive sign” in terms of reducing risk in the relationship, she said. “But… this is likely to be a fragile stability that does not eliminate underlying frictions.”
© 2024 AFP
