U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday he expects to visit China next year and that President Xi Jinping would likely travel to “maybe Washington or Palm Beach or someplace” sometime after.
“We pretty much agreed that I’ll be going to China,” Trump said, talking to reporters on Air Force One, as he dangled the prospect of reciprocal summits to the Chinese leader.
The comments come as U.S. and Chinese officials said they had reached a framework for a trade deal ahead of Trump’s meeting with Xi on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea this Thursday.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the agreement would ensure that China does not impose export controls on rare earths and that the U.S. would not move forward with 100 percent tariffs on Chinese imports slated for Nov. 1. It would also include “a final deal” on the sale of video-sharing platform TikTok in the U.S., Bessent added.
Trump said Saturday, as he boarded his flight to Malaysia, that both sides may make sacrifices to ease tensions.
“Sure, they’ll have to make concessions,” Trump said. “I guess we will, too.” He warned that “157 percent tariffs” on Chinese goods were “not sustainable for them,” while reiterating his willingness to “press ahead” with measures if talks falter.
“I have a lot of respect for President Xi,” Trump said Monday. “He likes me a lot, I believe, and respects me. And I think he respects our country a lot. We’re going to have a successful transaction for both countries.”
Trump visited Beijing as U.S. president in November 2017. Xi had visited the U.S. in April of that same year, when the two leaders met at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
At the time, a White House spokesperson said the Chinese delegation had requested Mar-a-Lago as the venue for the meeting.
During dinner — where Trump served the Chinese leader one of his favorite meals, dry-aged steak and whipped potatoes — he joked to reporters, “We had a long discussion already and so far I have gotten nothing, absolutely nothing.”
But he added the two leaders had “developed a friendship.”
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