Beijing (AFP) – US President Donald Trump is seeking trade wins when he meets Xi Jinping on Friday for the last day of a superpower summit he says has already resulted in a Chinese offer to help open the Strait of Hormuz. The US leader is hoping to seal deals in sectors including agriculture, aviation, and artificial intelligence, as well as contain differences between the two sides in a number of tense geostrategic areas — not least the Middle East war.
Trump’s overtures to Xi, whom he described as a “great leader” and “friend,” have so far been met with more muted tones by the Chinese leader. But in an interview with Fox News after the first day of the summit wrapped, Trump said the talks in Beijing had gone well, saying 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 said he’s not going to give military equipment…he said that strongly,” Trump told Fox. “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 added.
The warm handshakes and pomp on Thursday were somewhat overshadowed by a blunt warning from Xi on a much longer standing 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.” The Fox News interview did not touch upon Taiwan, and Trump did not comment to reporters when asked about the matter on Thursday. However, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC the president would say more “in the coming days.”
On Friday, Trump heads to Zhongnanhai, a central leadership compound next to Beijing’s Forbidden City. There, he will have tea in its gardens with Xi and hope to turn discussions to trade. In the Fox interview, Trump said one big business deal had already been struck, saying Xi had agreed to purchase “200 big” Boeing jets. Shares of the US aviation giant fell after Trump’s comments, in a sign the market had expected a more robust purchase from China. The US president said Beijing had also voiced interest in buying US oil and 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. And Treasury Secretary Bessent told CNBC that Trump and Xi were talking about setting up “guardrails” for the use of artificial intelligence. Bessent said the world’s “two AI superpowers are going to start talking,” though US export controls on the advanced technology to China remain a sore point in relations.
Trump’s visit to Beijing is the first by an American president in nearly a decade. On Thursday, Xi referenced the “Thucydides Trap,” a political theory referring to an increased likelihood of war when a rising new power competes with an established great power. Xi said, however, that he thought the United States and China could “transcend” this danger. Responding to the comments in a social media post in the early hours of Friday, Trump said Xi “very elegantly referred to the United States as perhaps being a declining nation.” He insisted Xi was not referring to the United States under his watch, which he claimed was experiencing an “incredible rise,” but rather the country under his predecessor Joe Biden. “Two years ago, we were, in fact, a Nation in decline,” Trump posted on his Truth Social site. “Now, the United States is the hottest Nation anywhere in the world, and hopefully our relationship with China will be stronger and better than ever before!” He said that Xi “congratulated me on so many tremendous successes.”
© 2024 AFP
