Xi to visit Washington for high-stakes Trump summit on trade and security

Xi Jinping will visit Washington from September 23 to 25 for summit talks with Donald Trump. The meeting brings trade, AI, Taiwan and war-related disputes to a critical diplomatic test.

In Short

• Discussions span tariffs, AI, military ties and the West Asia crisis
• Officials held constructive pre-summit trade talks and discussed AI risk transparency
• New US sanctions law targets buyers of Russian energy, including China

Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit Washington from September 23 to 25 for summit talks with US President Donald Trump, in what Beijing has described as a "milestone of historic significance". The visit, announced by China on Monday, will mark the leaders' second meeting in six months.

The talks are expected to cover China-US ties and a wide range of global issues, including trade tariffs, technology, artificial intelligence, military ties, West Asia, the Russia-Ukraine war, the space arms race and US arms sales to Taiwan. The summit comes at a time of both engagement and strain between the world's two largest economies.

Announcing the visit at a media briefing in Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said Xi would travel to the US at Trump's invitation. Guo said that during his talks with Trump, Xi would have in-depth exchanges on key issues concerning China-US relations, as well as world peace and development. "The reciprocal visits by the two heads of state within a span of six months will mark a milestone of historic significance," he said.

The two leaders last met in Beijing in May during Trump's China visit, when they held talks aimed at improving ties. Guo said, "China will work with the US to enrich the dimensions of the China-US constructive relationship of strategic stability, strengthen dialogue and cooperation and properly manage differences so as to deliver greater benefits to our two peoples and to further contribute to world peace, stability and prosperity." According to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post, Trump plans to personally receive Xi on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews in a rare airport reception.

Ahead of Xi's visit, Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer held what were described as "candid, in-depth and constructive" talks on economic and trade issues, including AI, in New York on Sunday. Bessent said the US had proposed a new notification mechanism for artificial intelligence incidents that could affect national security. "We want a shared vision of common goals and common threats," Bessent told the media in New York. "We think that just like any cross-border activity, that moving from opaque to more transparency between the No. 1 and the No. 2 AI powers in the world is very important." Xinhua reported that, guided by the consensus reached by the two heads of state, He and Bessent exchanged views on major economic and trade issues of common concern and on implementing the consensus from previous talks, while upholding "mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation".

The summit also comes after Trump signed a new sanctions law that authorises him to impose tariffs of up to 100 per cent on countries buying Russian oil and gas, including China and India. Trump last week signed the Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, which expands sanctions and gives the president powers to impose tariffs on countries that buy Russian energy. China has rejected US attempts to impose tariffs over its purchases of Russian oil and gas. Guo said on September 17 that China engages in normal economic and trade cooperation with other countries based on equality and mutual benefit, and added that China opposes "long-arm jurisdiction and unilateral sanctions that have no basis in international law and lack a UN Security Council mandate". Despite the tariff threat, Beijing and Washington are also negotiating a reciprocal tariff reduction framework covering products worth USD 30 billion from each side. Chinese commerce ministry spokesperson Huang Ling said the consultations aim to reach such an arrangement at the earliest possible date.

Before the summit, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also spoke by phone on September 17, with the conversation focusing on high-level exchanges between the two countries. Trump has also unveiled a new "AI Force" in what could sharpen the technology race between the two sides. In a social media post on Saturday, Trump said attempts at the "decimation, or destruction" of artificial intelligence were among what he called hoaxes generated by the "Radical Left Democrats".

The Iran-US conflict is also expected to figure in the discussions. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi visited Beijing last week and, during talks with Wang, said Tehran did not want the conflict to continue and hoped to return to diplomatic channels for a solution. According to the Chinese foreign ministry, China has urged Iran and the US to return to the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, rebuild the negotiating mechanism and hold substantive consultations on issues of mutual concern. The MoU, signed in June, was described as an interim agreement that opened a 60-day window for technical-level talks between the US and Iran aimed at restoring peace in West Asia, with Pakistan acting as a guarantor. The process was disrupted in July after military escalation by both sides. The Strait of Hormuz, which has effectively remained blocked, remains a key sticking point, with roughly a fifth of the world's energy supplies passing through the waterway in peacetime.

Trump is also urging Xi to prevail on Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop the war in Ukraine, as Beijing and Moscow maintain close ties. Xi, for his part, is expected to press Trump not to go ahead with new US arms sales to Taiwan, one of the main points of contention in China-US relations. The Trump administration announced an USD 11.1 billion arms package for Taiwan in December 2025, the largest such US package for the island at the time, including HIMARS, Javelin anti-tank missiles, artillery systems and unmanned aircraft systems. China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory, bars countries with which it has diplomatic ties from having formal relations with Taipei and has strongly opposed US arms sales to the island. Overall, the Washington summit is set to bring together a broad agenda of trade, security and diplomatic issues that have shaped the recent phase of China-US relations.

With PTI Inputs

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