--- title: "Xi Asks Trump to Oppose Taiwan Independence; the Visit Buys a Two-Month Truce" description: "Eleven years between visits, three days of pomp, and the hard questions left for later" author: "Frank Hale" published: 2026-09-25T16:10:48Z modified: 2026-09-26T17:09:08Z url: https://rews.cc/a/xi-presses-trump-to-oppose-taiwan-independence-as-leaders-ex-fad16e language: en tags: ["trump", "china", "ai", "trade", "xi", "us", "world"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # Xi Asks Trump to Oppose Taiwan Independence; the Visit Buys a Two-Month Truce *Eleven years between visits, three days of pomp, and the hard questions left for later* By Frank Hale · September 25, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/xi-presses-trump-to-oppose-taiwan-independence-as-leaders-ex-fad16e ## In brief - Xi pressed Trump to shift US policy from not supporting to opposing Taiwan independence; Trump’s answer was not disclosed - The tariff truce, due to expire November 10, was extended two months into January; tariffs and rare earths wait for later talks - Both sides agreed to keep talking on AI, but reached no joint rules; Trump opposed new guardrails, per Reuters - The state dinner for 134 drew Musk, Huang, Altman and other tech chiefs; Anthropic’s Amodei was absent - Republicans and MAGA figures attacked the lavish welcome; Xi invited Trump to China and Trump accepted Xi Jinping came to Washington on Wednesday evening. He landed at Joint Base Andrews in a Boeing 747-8i and Donald Trump was waiting on the tarmac with the first lady. No American president had gone to the airfield to greet a foreign leader since John F. Kennedy met Harold Macmillan there in 1962. B-2 bombers and F-22 fighters flew overhead. There was a red carpet, and there were Marines on their hands and knees smoothing it. It was the first state visit by a Chinese leader to the United States in 11 years. It was also the third time in less than a year that Trump and Xi had sat down together. The pomp ran for three days. The results fit on one page. The business was done on Thursday, in closed talks at the White House. According to the state-run Xinhua News Agency, Xi told Trump that China’s position on safeguarding national unity and territorial integrity was very clear, and that he hoped the United States would uphold “the correct position of opposing ‘Taiwan independence.’” Since 1979 the United States has kept to a one-China policy and said only that it does not support Taiwan independence, while selling Taiwan arms under the Taiwan Relations Act. Bloomberg reported it was the first time Xi had publicly demanded that an American president change the wording. It was not the first time he had asked. He put the same demand to Joe Biden at their last meeting in November 2024. In May, in Beijing, he warned Trump that mishandling Taiwan could bring the two countries into conflict. What Trump answered is not known. The White House gave no detailed accounting of the Taiwan discussion. Taiwan’s foreign ministry said Friday that Beijing was distorting the facts and that “Taiwan’s future can only be decided by the Taiwanese people in a democratic manner.” Around $14 billion in American weapons for Taiwan has waited months for Trump’s signature, Reuters reported. After the May summit Trump called the package a very good negotiating card. On trade there was one firm result. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the tariff truce due to expire November 10 would run two more months, into January. Xi said the two trade teams had agreed on new joint measures and called it good news for the world economy. The tariffs themselves, Chinese purchases of American goods, rare earths and technology controls went to later talks. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Friday the two countries had entered “a kind of managed trade situation” and promised far more detail on Monday. He said American farm goods and medical devices would go to China and non-sensitive consumer goods would come back. Export controls on advanced semiconductors, he indicated, were never on the table. On artificial intelligence the two men agreed to keep talking and agreed on little else. Xi said both countries were AI powers, that competition and cooperation could coexist, and that humanity must keep the technology under its control. Xinhua said Trump called AI a matter of humanity’s future. Reuters reported Trump was cool to any new regulatory guardrails. A proposed channel for notifying each other about serious AI safety incidents remained under discussion. On Iran, Xi repeated Beijing’s standing line: return to the memorandum the United States and Iran signed at Islamabad in June, and settle the nuclear file at the table. Ambassador David Perdue told CNBC that Trump had warned Xi directly that support for Iran was unacceptable. Reporters shouted at Trump whether he had demanded China stop buying Iranian oil. “Thank you very much,” Trump said, and said nothing more. Xinhua said the two leaders exchanged views on the Korean peninsula, the Middle East and the war in Ukraine. It disclosed nothing said about North Korea. Each promised to support the other’s coming summits, the APEC meeting in Shenzhen in November and the G20 in Florida in December. Then came the dinner. One hundred thirty-four guests sat down in the East Room, done in red — the lucky color in China — and the golds Trump favors. The first toast used Schramsberg sparkling wine, the same wine Zhou Enlai and Richard Nixon drank in Beijing in 1972. The menu mixed the two countries: squash velouté, sesame-crusted sea bass with bok choy, ice cream made from White House honey. Two soldiers in dress uniform unveiled Trump’s gift, a carving of a bald eagle. “The embodiment of the free and soaring spirit of America,” Trump said. “We hope it will find a nice place, a wonderful place, in Beijing.” Then he went off script and invited the whole room to tour the ballroom construction site after dinner. The guest list was heavy with technology money. Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Lisa Su, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, Sam Altman and Jeff Bezos all came. So did Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh, and donors Miriam Adelson and Jeff Yass. Dario Amodei of Anthropic, the loudest voice in the industry for caution on AI, was not there. Huang traded his leather jacket for a tuxedo. Altman signed autographs on the way in. Xi brought no Chinese business leaders with him. Cui Hongjian, a scholar at Beijing Foreign Studies University, told CNN the absence meant the relationship had made no substantial breakthrough in business or trade. “Right now, both sides are still in a phase where they want to stabilize the political situation a bit more,” Cui said. In the toasts, Xi likened Trump’s Make America Great Again to his own great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and said two such ambitious goals could reinforce each other. He reached back to the war against Japan and a friendship forged, he said, in blood and fire. “The friendship between the two peoples is a worthy cause that holds great promise,” he said. “Let us join hands and move forward side by side.” Trump answered in kind. “President Xi and I both understand that we represent different systems, but the ties between our people endure. We’ve never gotten along better.” Trump has not always talked this way. In 2012 he posted that China would “Lie, Cheat & Steal in all international dealings.” In 2015 he said to skip the state dinners and “just take them to McDonald’s and go back to the negotiating table.” In 2016 he told a rally in Indiana, “We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country.” This week the words were “great gentleman” and “truly great friendship.” Not everyone in his own party followed him across. Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana called Xi “a reptile” who cannot be trusted. Senator Thom Tillis reminded voters that Trump had campaigned on standing up to China. Roger Wicker, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the visit lavish and said Xi should not have been invited at all. Laura Loomer called the honor guard’s welcome embarrassing. Ron Wyden, a Democrat, said Xi got the red carpet in return for breaking nearly every trade promise China ever made. Video of American Marines spreading the carpet on their knees ran hard on social media, and the anger had a reason behind it: in the war with Iran, imagery from Chinese satellite firms helped Iranian missiles strike American bases, with dead and wounded, and officials have described the targeting help in detail. Read rews’s earlier reporting on how the summit read in Washington. The visit also ran against a fight over who could watch it. Trump barred reporters from CNN, MS Now and Politico from the White House press pool. A court later overturned the ban, but the major networks did not air the meeting. Chinese state television carried the whole thing, choreographed and approved. On Friday the two men met for tea in the Red Room, a room named for its red walls and red furniture, and Xi called Trump an amazing host. He said the two men were like the helmsmen of two great ships. He invited Trump and the first lady to China, and Trump accepted on the spot. Trump said the talks had made tremendous progress and that American farmers would be very happy. Then Xi went to the National Archives to see the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, and flew home. The truce runs to January. ## Sources - [시진핑, 트럼프에 대만 입장 변경 요구…"대만 독립에 반대하라"](https://chosun.com/international/international_general/2026/09/25/OHUKUEDKCVHFZNEEMGNNFDDMCM/) — chosun.com - [Trump hosts Xi Jinping at state dinner as AI and tariffs dominate talks](https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-09-25/trumps-state-dinner-and-a-bald-eagle-to-honor-xi-jinping.html) — english.elpais.com - [From 'cheats' to 'great friendship': How Trump's rhetoric on China changed](https://aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/25/from-cheats-to-great-friendship-how-trumps-rhetoric-on-china-changed) — aljazeera.com - [The who's who in tech showed up for Trump's dinner with China's leader — with one glaring exception](https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-leaders-join-donald-trump-dinner-with-xi-jinping-2026-9) — Business Insider - [The Trump-Xi meeting was heavy on pomp, light on substance — and China is fine with that](https://cnn.com/2026/09/25/world/xi-dc-trump-analysis-intl-hnk) — cnn.com - [Trump's state dinner for Xi features sea bass and a long list of tech titans](https://npr.org/2026/09/25/g-s1-144973/trump-state-dinner-xi) — npr.org - [레드카펫 앞 무릎 꿇은 미군에 美 강경파 "독재자 환대" 반발](https://chosun.com/international/international_general/2026/09/25/7G6K46RTL5FEFKKE564ZUXDN5I/) — chosun.com - [The fortified presidential jets world leaders use for official travel](https://www.businessinsider.com/air-force-one-presidential-planes-around-the-world) — Business Insider - [트럼프·시진핑, 사흘 연속 회담… 무역휴전 연장 합의](https://chosun.com/international/us/2026/09/26/YROM7LE2J5C6RIXQNGTNVLVTUY/) — chosun.com - [트럼프·시진핑, 2차대전 항일 역사 언급하며 관계 전환 강조](https://chosun.com/international/us/2026/09/25/CFPMXSAFGZCWLF6IWO2MWWX7TM/) — chosun.com