Trump says China’s Xi will visit the US in ‘not too distant future’

WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump said Chinese leader Xi Jinping would visit Washington soon, as trade tensions build between the world’s two largest economies.

Mr Xi will be coming in the “not too distant future,” Mr Trump said on March 17 while attending a board meeting at the John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts in the US capital, as he touted a string of recent visits by leaders from India, France, the UK and Ireland. 

Mr Trump has ramped up a trade fight with China since returning to office, twice hiking blanket tariffs on imports from the country.

The President has called those moves a response to Beijing’s failure to crack down on the flow of illegal fentanyl and the precursor chemicals used to make it. 

The Wall Street Journal previously reported that US and Chinese officials were discussing a possible “birthday summit” in June that would see the two leaders – who both have birthdays in the middle of the month – meet for the first time since Mr Trump returned to the White House.

The US President did not detail specific timing for the possible meeting. 

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on March 18 at a regular briefing in Beijing that she had no information to provide on a potential Trump-Xi meeting.

Mr Trump said in February that he would speak with Mr Xi, “probably in the next 24 hours”, as his initial 10 per cent tariff hike loomed. That tariff deadline passed without any public record of the two men talking. 

Top Chinese and US leaders typically take turns visiting each other’s nations, a protocol that puts the onus on Mr Trump to visit Beijing before hosting his counterpart.

While Mr Xi travelled to California in late 2023, Mr Joe Biden became the first US president since Mr Jimmy Carter not to visit China while in office.

Discussions between the two sides that would typically set up a leaders’ meeting are stuck at lower levels, with both sides deadlocked on how to proceed.

Beijing said Washington has not outlined detailed steps it expects from China on fentanyl to have the tariffs lifted, according to people familiar with the issue.

Mr Trump’s team rejects that assertion, according to a person familiar with the matter, who said the White House had sent messages to China through diplomatic channels.

Republican Senator Steve Daines, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, is expected to meet this weekend with a senior Chinese leader and representatives of US businesses in China, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr Daines said on social media that one of the issues he would raise is the “the flow of deadly fentanyl into our country”.

‘Big thank you’

China has accused Mr Trump of using fentanyl as a pretext to raise tariffs. A Foreign Ministry official last week said Washington should offer a “big thank you” for Beijing’s work in cracking down on drug trafficking instead of slapping levies on imports, and urged the Trump administration to resume talks.

China has implemented retaliatory tariffs, but those measures have been more limited than its response to Mr Trump’s trade actions in his first term.

After Mr Trump doubled the tariff on Chinese imports to 20 per cent earlier in March, Beijing announced levies as high as 15 per cent on US agricultural goods and banned trade with some defence companies. 

Mr Trump has said he is open to talks on reaching a deal, even as he intensifies pressure on Beijing.

In any such discussions, the US will want to address more than fentanyl, according to a person familiar with the matter, who said China’s help with creating jobs in the American heartland, ensuring the centrality of the dollar in global trade and Mr Xi’s support in ending the war in Ukraine would be on the agenda.

Also in focus will be Beijing’s implementation of a trade deal struck during Mr Trump’s first term, under which China promised to crack down on the theft of US trade secrets and purchase an additional US$200 billion (S$266.3 billion) in American products.

A US review into that agreement is set to wrap up on April 1. 

While Mr Trump has often praised Mr Xi, their relationship during his first term was derailed after the Covid-19 pandemic began, a global public health crisis the US leader blamed on China. 

The two men last spoke in January, days before the US President was inaugurated for his second term, in a discussion that touched on trade relations, a potential sale of the US operations of ByteDance’s TikTok app and efforts to curb fentanyl trafficking. BLOOMBERG