Five takeaways from Trump's summit with Xi in Washington

US President Donald Trump welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping to the White House yesterday (24 September), with talks on trade and artificial intelligence and the growing strategic rivalry between the countries all in the spotlight during an elaborate state visit.

Here are some major takeaways from the talks:

Trade deal extended, for now

The US secured an extension of its trade truce this week - but only a short one.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the two sides agreed to extend by two months a trade agreement that ended last year's trade war and was due to expire in November. The extension would give Washington and Beijing "more time to see what we can do on the economic front", he said.

But rather than locking in a durable agreement, the extension appears to push the central questions — tariffs, Chinese purchases, rare-earth supplies and technology restrictions — into the next round of negotiations.

Bessent said on Wednesday that Beijing was meeting its requirement in the earlier agreement to buy 25 million tons of soybeans but was lagging on its pledge to buy $17 billion in other agricultural goods. US officials have said rare-earth deliveries were also falling short, another sign that significant gaps remain.

For companies, the result is a familiar form of instability: tariff rates remain lower for now, but decisions must still be made against a shifting policy backdrop.

Dress to impress

For Trump, Xi's White House visit was an opportunity to show off a Washington being remade in his image.

After Xi treated Trump in Beijing to a tour around a Ming dynasty temple and a walled-off garden retreat rarely opened to foreigners, the US president returned the favour with a different kind of spectacle: troops wearing wigs and tri-corner hats marched in formation and played music in a Rose Garden redesigned to look like a Trump golf club.

Fighter jets and bombers roared overhead during ceremonies staged on Wednesday and Thursday, one so loud it caused Trump to flinch.

When the White House press corps was called to cover the two leaders, it wasn't to hear them talk about the weighty affairs of state. Instead, it was to watch them tour the Marine One helicopter and the recently redesigned South Lawn of the White House, replete with a large helipad emblazoned with the presidential seal.

Speaking to reporters, Trump brushed away questions about their policy discussions.

"He loves good granite," Trump said of Xi. "Great meeting."

Xi wants US 'prudence' over Taiwan

As expected, Xi pressed Trump on the Taiwan issue, saying, according to China's official news agency, that China hoped the United States would "handle the Taiwan question with prudence."

The agency's English-language service also wrote that Xi hoped the US would oppose Taiwan independence.

That would be a tougher version of Washington's long-standing formulation that it does not "support" independence. There are no signs that the Trump administration plans to change its wording.

There was no immediate White House readout of the exchange, but US officials have long avoided explicitly stating opposition to Taiwanese independence. Any shift in language would raise questions about Washington's resolve to defend the island and provoke opposition in Congress.

Strategic risk

Xi, not for the first time while meeting Trump, invoked the "Thucydides Trap", an academic theory that competition between a rising power and an established one tends towards war.

While the Chinese leader said the risk "can be overcome", his reference underscored how concerns about a potential US-China military conflict continue to shadow relations between the world's two largest powers.

Xi argued that both nations stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation, and he called for regular military dialogue and stronger crisis-prevention mechanisms.

Trump, for his part, drew on the two nations' shared history to emphasise the potential for cooperation. They could accomplish much by pursuing common interests, he said, invoking their wartime alliance against Japan.

Differences on AI

The two leaders expressed diverging views about artificial intelligence.

Trump, who has declared that AI should be called super intelligence, or SI, said in a social media post that he wants to "to leave it exactly where it is" and rely on the US Department of Justice rather than impose any new guardrails. He insisted that China held the same position.

But Xi said on Thursday that, as leading nations on AI, China and the US must manage its growth.

"We have both the capability and responsibility to develop and manage AI for good, and ensure that the development of AI is always under human control and serves the well-being of the people," Xi said.

Some of the biggest names in AI were expected to attend Trump's state dinner at the White House on Thursday for Xi, including Alphabet's Sundar Pichai, OpenAI's Sam Altman and Nvidia's Jensen Huang.