Trump touts business wins at talks with Xi on second day of summit; China airs Iran concerns
‘We’ve made some fantastic trade deals, great for both countries,’ says Trump
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[BEIJING] US President Donald Trump entered his final talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday (May 15) touting economic wins that gave markets little to cheer, while Beijing warned Washington about mishandling Taiwan and said its war with Iran should never have started.
Trump is making the first visit by a US president to China – America’s main strategic and economic rival – since his last in 2017, and has been seeking tangible results to beef up his dented approval ratings ahead of crucial midterm elections.
“We have made some fantastic trade deals, great for both countries,” Trump said, seated beside Xi in a decorative red chair at the walled-off Zhongnanhai complex, a former imperial garden that houses the offices of Chinese leaders.
Earlier, they had chatted and strolled outside, with Trump remarking about the beautiful roses and Xi promising to send him seeds for the flowers, before a lunch of lobster balls, Kung Pao scallops and shrimp dumplings.
But as Trump prepared for his final meeting, China’s foreign ministry issued a blunt statement outlining its frustration with the Iran war.
“This conflict, which should never have happened, has no reason to continue,” the ministry said, adding that China was supporting efforts to reach a peace deal in a war that had severely affected energy supplies and the global economy.
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At Zhongnanhai, Trump said the leaders had discussed Iran and felt “very similar”, though Xi did not comment.
Trump had been expected to urge China to convince Iran to make a deal with Washington to end a war that has pushed up prices and made him politically vulnerable at home.
But analysts doubt Xi will be willing to push Teheran hard or end support for its military, given Iran’s value to Beijing as a strategic counterweight to the US.
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A brief US summary of Thursday’s talks highlighted what the White House called the leaders’ shared desire to reopen the Strait of Hormuz off Iran and Xi’s apparent interest in American oil purchases to pare China’s dependence on Middle East supply.
A fifth of global supplies of oil and liquefied natural gas travel through the Strait in normal times.
Possible business deals
US officials said they had also agreed deals to sell farm goods, beef and energy to China, with progress on setting up mechanisms to manage future trade, and both sides expected to identify US$30 billion of non-sensitive goods. There were scant details of the deals, however, and no signs of a breakthrough on selling Nvidia’s advanced H200 AI chips to China, despite CEO Jensen Huang’s dramatic last-minute addition to the trip. Trump told Fox News that China had agreed to order 200 Boeing jets, its first purchase of US-made commercial jets in nearly a decade, but that was far short of the roughly 500 markets had expected, and Boeing shares fell more than 4 per cent. “For the market, the summit can be strategically reassuring while underwhelming in substance,” said Chim Lee, senior China analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit. The main achievement of the summit may be maintaining a fragile trade truce struck when the leaders last met in October 2025 and Trump suspended triple-digit tariffs on Chinese goods while Xi backed away from choking off supplies of vital rare earths. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, accompanying Trump, told Bloomberg TV on Friday it had not yet been decided whether to extend the truce beyond its expiry later in 2026.
Stark warning
Xi’s remarks on Taiwan, the democratically governed island Beijing claims, represented a sharp, if not unprecedented, warning during a pomp-filled summit that otherwise appeared friendly and relaxed.
China’s foreign ministry said they came in a closed-door meeting that ran more than two hours.
Taiwan, which lies just 80 km off China’s coast, has long been a flashpoint in US-China ties, with Beijing refusing to rule out the use of military force to gain control of the island and the US bound by law to provide Taipei with the means to defend itself.
“US policy on the issue of Taiwan is unchanged as of today,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also travelling with Trump, told NBC News, adding the Chinese “always raise it ... we always make clear our position and we move on.”
Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung thanked the United States on Friday for repeatedly expressing its support.
The China-US relationship is the most important in the world, Xi said at Thursday’s lavish state banquet, adding, “We must make it work and never mess it up.” REUTERS
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