(Reuters)
BEIJING, May 15 – U.S. President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping are set to meet on Friday to wrap up a two-day state visit that has featured pomp and business deals but also a warning from Xi that mishandling the Taiwan issue could send relations spiraling.
Trump is on the first visit by a U.S. president to China, America’s main strategic and economic rival, since his last in 2017, and has been seeking tangible results to beef up his dented approval ratings ahead of crucial midterm elections.
“Hopefully our relationship with China will be stronger and better than ever before!” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform early on Friday.
He described Xi as a “warm person” but “all business” in a pre-recorded interview on Fox News’ ‘Hannity’ program.
Trump and Xi are set to have tea and lunch at the walled-off Zhongnanhai complex, a former imperial garden that houses the offices of Chinese leaders, before Trump departs.
The summit has been aimed at maintaining a fragile trade truce struck when the leaders last met in October and Trump suspended triple-digit tariffs on Chinese goods and Xi backed away from choking global supplies of vital rare earths.
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On Thursday, Xi told Trump that negotiations on trade issues had reached “balanced and positive outcomes”, without elaborating.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, who is with Trump in China, told Bloomberg TV on Friday it had not yet been decided whether to extend the truce beyond its expiry later this year.
Deals on Chinese purchases of farm goods, beef and Boeing aircraft have been firmed up, Greer added, and progress was made on establishing mechanisms to manage future trade, with both sides expected to identify $30 billion of non-sensitive goods.
The Taiwan issue should not push that off the rails, he said.
Trump told Fox News that China had agreed to order 200 Boeing BA.N jets, its first purchase of U.S.-made commercial jets in nearly a decade. That was far short of the roughly 500 markets had expected, and Boeing shares fell more than 4% after the comments.
