'Let's race, not wrestle': 5 key takeaways that defined Trump-Xi meet in Washington

Chinese President Xi Jinping began his second state visit to the US on Thursday with a formal welcome at the White House by his US counterpart Donald Trump, who vowed to work towards forging a better future for the two nations.

Talks on trade and artificial intelligence and the growing strategic rivalry between the countries were in the spotlight during the elaborate state visit.

No major US TV network aired live footage of the Trump and Xi meeting or the ceremonies at the White House.


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'Let's race, not wrestle'

In his opening remarks, Xi said he was visiting the US at President Trump's invitation to “carry on our friendship, expand cooperation, and promote the well-being of both our peoples.”

“We should coexist in peace. As I have said many times, China and the United States as two major countries stand to gain from cooperation and will both lose in confrontation,” Xi said in the remarks delivered at the ceremony in the Grand Foyer of the White House.

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He said the two countries should avoid the “Thucydides Trap,” the theory that a rising power and an established power are likely to go to war.

“We do not need to avoid mentioning competition, but our competition should be a healthy one, and should be kept within bounds. It should be a race of catching up with one another, not a wrestle in which when either wins, or loses,” Xi said.

“China and the US must hold the line of no conflict and no confrontation between us. We can certainly find the right path for our two great countries to get along on this planet. Our two militaries should maintain regular dialogue and improve mechanisms for crisis communication and prevention. The Thucydides Trap can be overcome,” he said.

Xi touched on artificial intelligence in his opening comments, saying that the two countries had a responsibility to ensure that humans always operate AI.

“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.


'Truly great friendship'

Trump in his brief opening remarks at the White House said, "Just as our people worked together to win that war, President Xi and I will continue working together to forge a better future for both of our nations,” recalling America's role in World War II.

Trump said he and Xi have forged a “truly great friendship” since his first election in 2016, built on mutual respect and the vital interest of “our people”.

No major US TV network aired live footage of the Trump and Xi meeting or the ceremonies at the White House. The boycott follows Trump's decision to ban CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House grounds.

Major takeaways from the talks:

Trade deal extended

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, as per Reuters, 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.


Oppurtunity for Trump to show off

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

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 favor 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."

Taiwan issue

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.

Risks involved

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 toward war, said Reuters.

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 emphasize 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 (GOOGL.O) Sundar Pichai, OpenAI's Sam Altman and Nvidia's (NVDA.O) Jensen Huang.

(With inputs from agencies)