President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping of China met at the White House on Thursday, with trade, artificial intelligence safeguards and the war in Iran among the issues before them. Xi’s first visit to Washington in 10 years comes as the two countries try to preserve a fragile trade truce and manage a sharper contest over technology.
The talks were the third meeting between the two leaders since Trump returned to the White House. They followed an agreement on Wednesday to extend a trade truce for two months. The arrangement had been due to expire in November.
Neither side expects a broad settlement from the meeting. The immediate purpose is to steady a relationship that remains exposed to disputes over trade practices, technology and regional affairs.
The two countries have stepped back from last year’s intense trade war, when they imposed tit-for-tat sky-high tariffs that threatened the global economy. The truce has eased that confrontation, though trade irritants remain unresolved and the terms and timetable of the extension have yet to be set out publicly.
Xi used the meeting to urge restraint between the two powers. He said they “must hold the line of no conflict and no confrontation”.
Artificial intelligence was also a central subject. Xi said the two superpowers had a responsibility to ensure that humans always operate AI and that “development of AI is always under human control”.
The United States has proposed a new “notification mechanism” for AI incidents involving the two countries. Their finance ministers discussed the proposal earlier this week, though details of any framework remain unknown.
Xi also raised the position of Chinese businesses in the United States, saying he hoped “Chinese companies are treated fairly here in the United States”. The meeting offered no public timetable for resolving the outstanding trade issues between the two sides.
Alongside the diplomatic agenda, Xi announced that China would send two pandas to Zoo Atlanta. The animals are male Ping Ping and female Fu Shuang, both born at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China.
Xi confirmed that the pandas “will come to their new home in Zoo Atlanta and meet with the American people” in “a few days”. Their arrival will follow the return to China in 2024 of four pandas from Zoo Atlanta: Lun Lun, Yang Yang, Ya Lun and Xi Lun.
Trump’s 15-year-old granddaughter Arabella was seated between her mother, Ivanka Trump, and Secretary of State Rubio during the opening remarks. Nearly a decade ago, Arabella sang for Xi in Mandarin during the Chinese leader’s visit to Mar-a-Lago.
The meeting placed that personal history beside a far more difficult official agenda. The trade extension gives both governments a further two months before the previous truce deadline, while the proposed AI communications channel points to an effort to establish safeguards as competition between the two countries intensifies. Any further agreements, including on trade, AI incidents or the war in Iran, were not known at the time of the talks.
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