China's President Xi Jinping (L) and U.S. President Donald Trump speak through interpreters during a State Dinner in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on September 24, 2026. (AFP Photo)
U.S. President Donald Trump treated Chinese leader Xi Jinping to pomp and pageantry on Sept. 24, as the leaders of the world's two superpowers met in Washington DC for talks.
Trump hailed his "great friendship" with Xi and pulled out all the stops to woo the Chinese leader, greeting him on the runway on his arrival, offering him a rare tour of the presidential helicopter, and gifting him a bald eagle statue.
The pomp, however, masked the lack of diplomatic breakthroughs.
"The pageantry was the point," according to Ryan Hass at the Brookings Institution.
"When the troop reviews and opening ceremony are taken out of the schedule, the two leaders had less than two hours of direct meetings with each other," he added.
Those meetings yielded "many new consensuses, "according to Xi, but the only concrete deals announced were a promise to invite 100,000 young Americans to China for exchanges, and lending two pandas to a zoo in Atlanta.
Instead, the meetings were meant to show that the two leaders could "effectively manage U.S.-China relations within tolerable bounds of competition", Hass said.
Xi once again urged the two sides to avoid the "Thucydides Trap" — the theory that a rising power will come into conflict with an established one — but there was little sign of progress on thorny issues like Taiwan or artificial intelligence.
Trump and Xi hinted at big differences in their approach to the regulation of Artificial Intelligence — or "super intelligence", as Trump referred to it.
While Trump has dismissed calls from tech leaders for regulations to "pace the frontier" of the technology, Xi said AI should "always be under human control."
One significant deal was the extension by two months of the countries' fragile trade truce, due to expire in November.
The detente paused a bruising trade war last year by reducing U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods and removing Beijing's export controls on rare earths vital to manufacturing.
Trump is "trying to stabilize relations for now until the U.S. can basically decrease its vulnerabilities to Beijing," according to Jared Mondschein, Director of Research at the United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney.
Trump, a self-styled dealmaker, has repeatedly called on China to purchase more U.S. goods to establish a more "balanced" economic relationship.
However, Xi's visit hasn't yet produced any commitments for Chinese purchases of, for example, Boeing planes or American farm produce.
Trump has repeatedly called on China to help extricate the U.S. from its conflict with Iran and reopen the Strait of Hormuz for shipping, calls Beijing has rebuffed.
China has also been accused of helping Iran target U.S. military assets in the Middle East.
Xi told the U.S. president to end the war and come to a negotiated settlement with Tehran as soon as possible, according to a Chinese readout of the talks.
"The idea that China is going to be a big power broker, appear publicly and negotiate solutions — I think that's really unlikely," said Rana Mitter, professor of U.S.-Asia relations at the Harvard Kennedy School.
"I don't think that China is going to be the magic card that gets the U.S. out of trouble in the region."
Xi also repeated his warning, given to Trump in May, that he should show "prudence" over Taiwan.
But he also went further than he had in that meeting by urging the U.S. to explicitly oppose Taiwan independence.
