Trump-Xi meeting LIVE updates: Trump shakes hands with ‘tough negotiator’ as Xi says China and MAGA go ‘hand in hand’

Officials from both countries met earlier this week in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to lay the groundwork for their leaders’ meeting today.

Afterwards, China’s top trade negotiator, Li Chenggang, said they had reached a “preliminary consensus”, a statement affirmed by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who said there was “a very successful framework”.

But before Trump and Xi appeared for a handshake to formally start the meeting, there was a chaotic series of exchanges among US and Chinese officials about how to stage the meeting.

Ahead of the bilateral, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said “a very successful framework” had been set out.Credit: AP

The anticipated detente, however, has given investors and businesses caught between the two nations a sense of relief. The US stock market has climbed on the hopes of a trade framework coming out of the meeting.

However cordial the rhetoric, Trump and Xi remain on a potential collision course as their countries vie to dominate manufacturing, develop emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and shape world affairs such as the status of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Trump indicated that he did not plan to bring up issues such as the security of Taiwan with Xi.

“The proposed deal on the table fits the pattern we’ve seen all year: short-term stabilisation dressed up as strategic progress,” Craig Singleton, a senior director of the China program at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, said.

“Both sides are managing volatility, calibrating just enough co-operation to avert crisis while the deeper rivalry endures.”
AP