President Trump extended the US-China trade truce to January 10 as he gave Chinese President Xi Jinping a rare airport welcome at Joint Base Andrews, setting a conciliatory tone for a visit that will test relations between the two superpowers.
Trump greeted Xi on the tarmac shortly after 6pm on Wednesday, as the Chinese leader arrived for a three-day state visit. US presidents usually receive visiting foreign leaders at the White House, making the reception at the military airfield an unusual diplomatic gesture.
Joint Base Andrews is located 13 miles southeast of the White House in Maryland. President George W. Bush greeted Pope Benedict XVI there in 2008, while President Obama met Pope Francis at Andrews in 2015.
The White House said the reception reciprocated Xi's hosting of Trump in China this summer. Anna Kelly, a White House spokesperson, stated: “President Xi hosted President Trump in China for a historic summit this summer, and President Trump is reciprocating his hospitality by welcoming the Chinese delegation for a reciprocal visit this week.”
The economic concession came shortly after Xi arrived in Washington. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington and Beijing had agreed to prolong their trade truce, which had been due to end on November 10. The truce was previously extended in August.
Bessent met Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng at the World Bank in Washington earlier on Wednesday to agree the extension. Under the arrangement, the two countries will reduce tariffs and avoid imposing further trade restrictions.
The pause follows an October meeting between Trump and Xi in Busan, South Korea. At that meeting, the two sides rolled back restrictions involving critical minerals and high-tech exports, and agreed a temporary pause in their triple-digit tariffs.
The new January 10 deadline could give both governments further time for talks at international summits in China in November and Florida in December. The agenda for those meetings, and whether either side will seek another extension or a broader agreement, remains unclear.
Xi is due to meet Trump at the White House during his two-day stay in Washington, followed by a state dinner. Announcements on financial services and agriculture purchases are expected during the visit, though their content has yet to be set out.
The visit is Xi's first to the US in over a decade. It is also his first trip to the US in nearly three years. It was not expected to produce major breakthroughs.
Trade remains one of the principal areas of friction between Washington and Beijing. The two governments also face tensions over technology, including artificial intelligence, Taiwan and Tehran. The discussions in Washington will provide a measure of whether the tariff pause and the leaders' personal diplomacy can contain those wider disputes.
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