Trump says he'll meet Xi twice more this year as summit wraps

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said he would meet again with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in November, following what he said was a successful summit in Washington.

“We will be meeting again in November, in China, and then at the G20 in December, in Miami, Florida. Much has been, and will be, accomplished,” Trump said in a social media post Friday.

Trump’s comments followed a summit in Washington with Xi that was seemingly light on concrete policy outcomes. Earlier Friday, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the U.S. would announce agreements with China on trade in non-sensitive goods, which could be made public as soon as Monday.

Any announcement of further calming of trade tensions would mark a sign that the world’s two largest economies are on a stable footing. China is set to host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November and the U.S. will hold a gathering of Group of 20 leaders in the U.S. the following month.

“We’re in a managed trade situation,” Greer said Friday on CNBC. “Yes, we’ve had progress and we will release on Monday, I think, a lot more details about what we’ve accomplished over the past few weeks in negotiating with the Chinese.”

The framework is expected to cover transactions overseen by the newly created Board of Trade. That potentially includes American agricultural and medical device shipments to China and Chinese exports of consumer products, Greer said. After the leaders’ last summit in May, there’s been anticipation of an announcement of tariff cuts covering roughly $30 billion in two-way trade.

“We’ve actually reached agreement with the Chinese on a number of these things in areas where, if we have trade disputes in the future, if there are tariff measures in the future, we just leave those things to the side,” Greer said.

That would build on a two-month lengthening of the tariff truce, which U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced before the summit got underway. The extension, however, was shorter than some observers had foreseen.

The Trump-Xi summit was mostly focused on pomp and ceremony and the two sides were not expected to produce major breakthroughs on areas of tension, including artificial intelligence and Taiwan, in addition to trade.

The $30 billion figure that officials have previously floated only covers a small percentage of the overall U.S.-China trading relationship, which was valued at almost $500 billion in goods and services last year, according to U.S. government data.

The leaders and their wives, first lady Melania Trump and Madame Peng Liyuan, had tea at the White House before making a brief stop at the National Archives. The building houses some of the most consequential U.S. records, such as the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

Xi earlier indicated he was also looking forward to two opportunities to meet Trump again later this year.

The awaited deals on trade and extension of the tariff truce represent the main tangible accomplishments from a long-awaited summit that was heavy on fanfare but had so far provided little indication that the leaders had made progress on some of the friction within the U.S.-China relationship.

Instead, the lasting impressions of Xi’s second state visit to America will largely be of the lavish and warm welcome Trump threw for the leader of a country that poses a military and economic challenge to Washington. Trump rolled out the red carpet for Xi, welcoming him on the tarmac and treating him to military bands, flyovers and an opulent state dinner packed with titans from Wall Street and Silicon Valley.

The U.S. president clearly relished the visit, showing Xi changes he’s made to the White House, including a White House helipad, and taking Xi — a foreign leader — inside the presidential helicopter, Marine One.

Officials did discuss ways to manage tensions over artificial intelligence as the race to dominate the industry emerges as a centerpiece of the U.S.-China rivalry. Even so, Trump had insisted the technology needs few guardrails and seemed more preoccupied with his idea for re-branding AI as “super intelligence.”

Asked by reporters if he had discussed the U.S. war with Iran, Trump said Friday that they had, but did not elaborate.

On Taiwan, however, Xi urged the U.S. to formally “oppose” its independence, an explicit call for Trump to change U.S. policy on the self-ruled island Beijing sees as its own territory. China has been ratcheting up pressure on the U.S. over the chip hub it seeks to isolate on the world stage.

Meetings between Trump and Xi on Thursday lasted under two hours, sandwiched between speeches and spectacle. It was unclear how much progress was made on some of the major irritants in the relationship.

The U.S. has expressed concerns China is not fully honoring an agreement to ease the flow of rare-earth minerals crucial to industrial production, while Beijing has bristled at restrictions on semiconductors and other cutting-edge technology.

Trump’s efforts to ban three media outlets from the White House affected the summit’s coverage, with major TV outlets refusing to broadcast until CNN was restored to the pool that manages covering presidential events. On Friday, major television networks resumed their presidential coverage. A CNN spokesperson said the network had been allowed back into the pool.

—With assistance from Skylar Woodhouse and Ryan Chua.