U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasized friendship and cooperation during a White House summit Thursday, but offered few public details on how they would resolve differences over the Iran war, trade or artificial intelligence.
The leaders’ upbeat assessments followed a day of ceremonies and talks that brought together the world’s two largest economies, while fighting in the Middle East disrupts energy supplies and threatens shipping routes important to both.
“President Xi and I both understand that we represent different systems, but the ties between our people endure, and we’ve never gotten along better,” Trump said at a Thursday-evening state dinner he hosted at the White House.
In his remarks at the dinner, Xi said the two had held “sincere and in-depth exchanges and reached common understanding on many issues,” which were key to establishing “strategic stability” in the U.S.-China relationship.
The White House had not released a substantive readout of the Trump-Xi talks by Thursday evening, but China’s account described discussions between the pair on the Middle East, trade, and AI, but outlined few concrete commitments.
The day began with a military welcome at the White House, followed by public remarks and closed-door talks. Xi’s visit lasted more than three hours, and included a tour of Trump’s construction projects on the property.
The Chinese president later attended a state dinner along with prominent business leaders including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Tesla’s Elon Musk, Apple’s Tim Cook, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
For U.S. allies and partners in the Middle East, however, questions loomed around whether the Chinese could help end the war in Iran, or restore safe passage for tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.
Thursday’s talks came as Washington’s campaign to economically isolate Iran tests how far the U.S. is willing to risk relations with Beijing, Tehran’s largest oil buyer. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent earlier this month threatened penalties against foreign firms dealing with Iran, but Washington has so far spared major Chinese banks, facilitating the oil trade, while sanctioning smaller Chinese refineries.
According to a Chinese state media account of Thursday’s talks, Xi told Trump he supported a return to the June 17 Islamabad memorandum that ended months of war and reopened the Strait of Hormuz for 60 days. He also called for renewed U.S.-Iran talks toward a deal on Iran’s nuclear program.
Beijing has also come under scrutiny over supplies reaching Iran’s Houthi allies, who have seized territory along Yemen’s Red Sea coast and threatened Saudi Arabian shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
Chinese companies have become the largest source of seized drone components bound for Yemen’s Houthis, including those capable of military use, according to a Wall Street Journal report published on Wednesday. Such supplies help the Houthis attack ships in the Red Sea, threatening the other major trade route used by Saudi oil tankers.
On U.S.-China trade, the biggest development came before the talks, with Bessent saying Wednesday that Washington and Beijing had agreed to extend their trade truce by two months, from Nov. 10 until Jan. 10, giving negotiators more time to address their disputes.
Thursday morning, Trump said the pair planned to discuss “superintelligence,” and Xi called for AI to remain under human control. China’s readout later described support for further dialogue, without announcing specific plans or a timetable.
Xi’s morning remarks also invoked the “Thucydides trap,” the idea that strategic competition between a rising and an established power will inevitably lead to war.
“China and the United States must hold the line of no conflict and no confrontation between us,” Xi said. “The Thucydides trap can be overcome.”
For much of the day, though, the leaders’ public exchanges revealed more about their efforts to build rapport than any substance of their private talks.
During a tour of Trump’s new ballroom and helipad construction projects, the leaders did not answer reporters’ shouted questions about issues surrounding the Iran war, or Taiwan, the democratically ruled island which Beijing claims as its territory.
Trump instead paused to describe his guest’s interest in his ballroom project.
“He is an expert on stone, among many other things, and loves good granite,” Trump said.
