U.S. President Donald Trump arrived in Beijing on Wednesday for his hotly anticipated talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the Iran war, trade and U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.
The meat of the summit won’t happen until Thursday, when the leaders hold bilateral talks and a formal banquet. But the Chinese offered Trump a pomp-filled welcome, literally rolling out the red carpet for him after Air Force One landed in the Chinese capital.
The president was to be greeted by Chinese Vice President Han Zheng; Xie Feng, China’s ambassador to Washington; Ma Zhaoxu, executive vice minister of foreign affairs; as well as the U.S. envoy to Beijing, David Perdue, according to the White House. The welcoming ceremony includes some 300 Chinese youths, a military honor guard and a military band.
“We’re the two superpowers,” Trump told reporters as he departed the White House on Tuesday for the long flight to Beijing. “We’re the strongest nation on Earth in terms of military. China’s considered second.”
While Trump likes to project a sense of strength, the visit occurs at a delicate moment for his presidency as his popularity at home has been weighed down by the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran and rising inflation as a consequence of that conflict. The Republican president is seeking a win by signing deals with China to buy more American soybeans, beef and aircraft, saying he’ll be talking with Xi about trade “more than anything else.”
The Trump administration hopes to begin the process of establishing a Board of Trade with China to address differences between the countries. The board could help prevent the trade war ignited last year after Trump’s tariff hikes, an action China countered through its control of rare earth minerals. That led to a one-year truce last October.
But Trump is visiting Beijing when Iran continues to dominate his domestic agenda. The war has led to the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, stranding oil and natural gas tankers and causing energy prices to spike to levels that could sabotage global economic growth. The U.S. president declared that Xi didn’t need to assist in resolving the conflict, even though Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was in Beijing last week.
“We have a lot of things to discuss. I wouldn’t say Iran is one of them, to be honest with you, because we have Iran very much under control,” Trump told reporters Tuesday.
Taiwan high on the agenda
The status of Taiwan also will be a major topic as China is displeased with U.S. plans to sell weapons to the self-governing island that the Chinese government claims as part of its own territory.
Trump told reporters Monday that he would be discussing with Xi an $11 billion weapons package for Taiwan that the U.S. administration authorized in December but has not yet begun fulfilling. The arms package is the largest ever approved for Taiwan.
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But the U.S. leader has demonstrated greater ambivalence toward Taiwan, an approach that’s raising questions about whether Trump could be open to dialing back support for the island democracy.
At the same time, Taiwan — as the world’s leading chipmaker — has become essential for the development of AI, with the U.S. importing more goods so far this year from Taiwan than China. Trump has sought to use Biden-era programs and his own deals to bring more chipmaking to America.
The Chinese Communist Party’s news outlet, People’s Daily, published a strongly worded editorial ahead of Trump’s arrival underscoring that Taiwan is “the first red line that cannot be crossed in China-U.S. relations” and is “the biggest point of risk” between the two nations.
