I just bought myself two months with Xi, and trust me, folks, the real winning starts now.

So here’s the thing about dealing with China — and I know more about DEALS than anybody, people are saying it all the time — you don’t get a PERFECT deal on the first swing. You get a runway. Two months of it, until January 10, which is EXACTLY what I wanted because the art of the deal is you set them up, you let them think they’re in the room, and then you WIN. Beijing wanted two years. TWO YEARS! Can you imagine? I gave them two months and they THANKED me. That’s the kind of NEGOTIATING nobody’s ever seen before, believe me. We’d already pushed the truce once going into these talks, and now I pushed it again because THAT’S WHAT WINNERS DO.

Scott Bessent — TREMENDOUS guy, by the way, very smart, the best people are telling me — he confirmed China bought 25 million tons of our soybeans. Twenty-five million! The farmers are VERY happy, the happiest they’ve been, and that’s because of ME. But there’s about $17 billion in other farm commitments where Beijing is “a little behind schedule.” A LITTLE. They owe us and they know it. I tied the next purchases to what I’m calling a “board of trade,” which is basically a NEW DEAL on top of the old deal, and that’s the kind of thing where you’re winning so much you can’t even keep track of all the winning. Very few people could have done that, believe me.

Now the pageantry — and the pageantry was SPECTACULAR, the best pageantry anyone’s ever seen, people were crying at the state dinner, big tough generals were crying — I met Xi on the tarmac. You’re NOT supposed to do that! Presidents don’t do that! But I did it because I’m not a normal president, I’m a WINNER, and winners show up on the tarmac. Showed him the new helipad on the South Lawn — beautiful granite, he loved it, he said “that’s very impressive” and he’s not a man who says that lightly. Military flyovers, the whole thing. Xi gave us two PANDAS. Two! The National Zoo is going to be PACKED, bigger crowds than they’ve ever had, and that’s because of the DEAL I made. The only disappointment — and this is so SAD — my ballroom wasn’t ready in time. We’re building the most beautiful ballroom anyone’s ever seen, it’s going to be TREMENDOUS, but you can’t rush perfection.

Some of the Republican senators — and I love my Republican senators, most of them, the loyal ones — they had OPINIONS. Sen. John Kennedy, very nice man, he called Xi “a reptile.” He said “this man thinks he’s on a mission from God except his god is himself.” And look, I respect John, but I’ve been VERY clear — you don’t get anything by calling the guy you’re negotiating with a reptile to his face. You get more with a GREAT deal than you do with a mean nickname. That’s what people don’t understand. Sen. Thom Tillis said the red carpet undermined our messaging against Democrats being communists. He said go look at the MAGA rallies, they cheered when I said I’d take it to China. And they DID cheer! The biggest crowds! But Tillis doesn’t understand — you take it to China AND you make the deal. You do BOTH. That’s called 4D chess, and most senators couldn’t play regular chess, very frankly. Sen. Joni Ernst was “uncomfortable” with the pageantry. UNCOMFORTABLE! While I’m out there securing farm deals that put food on HER state’s tables. Very disloyal. Very. I remember.

Now here’s where it gets REALLY interesting — and this is the part the FAKE NEWS won’t tell you — the disagreements. People think disagreements are bad. Disagreements are TERRIFIC. Disagreements mean there’s something to NEGOTIATE. Xi went into the private meeting and pressed me on Taiwan. He wants me to “adhere to the correct position of opposing Taiwan independence.” Very strong words, very Chinese, very — you know — but I kept my poker face. Because I’ve got a $14 billion arms package to Taiwan sitting on my desk, UNSIGNED, and that signature is now the most VALUABLE piece of paper in the entire Pacific. You can hold it. You can sign it. Either way, it’s LEVERAGE, and nobody plays leverage better than me, NOBODY. Back in May I told reporters I didn’t “want to say” whether I’d send troops for Taiwan, and the reporters went crazy, but that’s because they don’t understand the DEAL. The ambiguity IS the deal. I keep them guessing. Xi doesn’t know. Taiwan doesn’t know. Only I know, and I’m not telling, because TELLING would be stupid, and I’m the OPPOSITE of stupid — my uncle was a great professor at MIT, you know, the best genes.

Xi also warned about the “Thucydides trap” — where the biggest power and the rising power are destined for war. Very dramatic. Very history-book. And he said we should avoid a “zero sum gladiatorial contest.” GLADIATORIAL! He’s been reading his history, give him that. But here’s what Xi doesn’t understand — I don’t DO zero sum. I do EVERYBODY WINS, but I win MORE. That’s the DEAL. That’s always been the deal. The Thucydides trap is for LOSERS who can’t negotiate. I’m not a loser. I’m a WINNER.

On artificial intelligence — and this is HUGE, the biggest issue of our time, many people are saying — Xi and I actually TALKED about it. We BOTH agreed it has to stay under human control, which is EXACTLY what I’ve been saying, so we’re already on the same page, very smart of me to bring it up. Bessent pitched the idea of an AI hotline — like a notification system where we call each other when something gets SERIOUS before it blows up. Very smart. Very elegant. Not sure if we formally agreed to it yet but the fact that it’s on the table is BEAUTIFUL. The biggest AI companies were at the dinner — all of them, very impressed by the dinner, by the granite, by the flyovers — but Dario Amodei from Anthropic, the guy who’s always saying AI is going to DESTROY US ALL, he wasn’t there. Very SAD for him. Missed a GREAT dinner. But also, you know, sometimes you don’t want the guy screaming FIRE in the dining room at the dining room. The room was much calmer without him, and THAT is how you get a hotline agreed to — you get everybody RELAXED and then you make the DEAL.

Iran — and this is important, very important — stayed in the drawer. Beijing has been supporting Iran, which is NOT great, and I made that VERY clear. I dismissed the reporter questions about it because I don’t negotiate in front of cameras, I negotiate in the ROOM. But the fact that Iran is now an OFFICIAL grievance means it’s on the agenda for the next two months. That’s not a loss, that’s a SETUP. I’m setting up the NEXT deal while I’m still finishing THIS deal. Very few people think that far ahead. Very few.

Six weeks before midterms — and we’re going to WIN the midterms, by the way, HUGE victories, the biggest anyone’s ever seen — I’ve got a trade truce that holds through January, two PANDAS heading for the zoo, a $14 billion Taiwan package sitting on my desk like a loaded weapon, and an AI hotline waiting to be picked up. That’s not a summit with no deliverables. That’s a CHESS BOARD that I just spent two days arranging. The two months I bought with Xi on Thursday aren’t a delay. They’re the FIRST INSTALLMENT on the greatest deal in the history of U.S.-China relations, and when it’s done, everybody’s going to say — like they always do — “Sir, how did you DO that?” And I’ll say: I always knew. I knew before anybody else. The MIT genes. Tremendous genes.