Trump says leave AI 'exactly where it is' ahead of Xi state visit

Bessent says US-China trade truce extended to January

WASHINGTON — Hours before formal meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping began at the White House on Thursday, President Trump wrote on Truth Social that artificial intelligence will be “a big topic of discussion” with the visiting leader, “but I want to leave it exactly where it is. That is China’s position also. Our guardrail is the DOJ!” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday that Washington and Beijing had agreed to extend their trade truce until January, an announcement Beijing has not officially confirmed.

The summit opens against a backdrop of unresolved frictions. The Congressional Research Service estimates the US average tariff rate on China at more than 36% in July and China’s average rate on US goods hovering around 30%. A US naval blockade of Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz has cut off an estimated 12% of China’s oil imports. The Chinese government has said AI-powered technology should permeate 90% of the country’s key industrial sectors by 2030.

The summit’s substantive agenda spans artificial intelligence, trade, and Iran. On AI, Trump’s post comes as US AI executives have warned each other in recent weeks to slow down their development of the technology to ensure public safety. Bessent said Sunday that Washington and Beijing are discussing ways to warn each other about AI incidents that pose national security risks. A spokesperson for China’s government, responding to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s essay titled “We Must Pace the Frontier,” dismissed the proposal as unfair, accusing the call for safety rules of being an attempt to hold back Chinese competition. China’s AI industry is backed by hundreds of billions in state-led funds.

On trade, the truce Bessent cited dates to the two leaders’ October 2025 meeting in Busan, South Korea, where Washington and Beijing agreed to scale back tariffs that had climbed past 100% in 2025. As part of that arrangement, China agreed to suspend export controls on rare earth materials crucial for high-tech products and to buy American agricultural products, while the US reduced some of its tariffs on Chinese goods. Despite that détente, both countries continue to impose high tariffs on each other’s goods. Economists expect Trump and Xi to agree to a one-year extension of the trade truce made in Busan.

Iran also figures on the agenda. Xi’s state visit comes as the United States continues a months-long naval blockade on Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off an estimated 12% of China’s oil imports. China is Iran’s largest trading partner, and analysts said Trump may ask Xi to play a role in peace talks with Tehran.

Nate Swanson, director of the Iran Strategy Project with the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative, said China could provide an off-ramp for Trump. “I think China can play a role to be a broker or the one that drives parties to consensus and decision,” Swanson said, “but I don’t know if they can bring it all together and be the driving factor behind it. They have less to lose, but they still have a lot of leverage over the situation.”

Last month, the Trump administration intensified economic pressure on Iran by targeting its financial enablers, including Chinese entities. Bessent said Washington and Beijing discussed those sanctions during a weekend meeting with Chinese officials, saying Chinese financial authorities “have been very engaged in the process.”

The state visit’s public ceremony paired the substantive policy agenda with traditional pageantry. At an arrival ceremony, Trump said the two countries should work together, recalling how during World War II the two countries’ militaries fought on the same side. Xi emphasized the respect he and Trump have developed for each other, used his remarks to invite 100,000 American students to visit China over the next five years, and announced that two pandas would soon be on loan to the Atlanta Zoo. Xi also reiterated what he called “strategic stability” as the foundation for the US-China relationship, a framing he popularized at the two leaders’ meeting in Busan, South Korea, last October.