Trump, Xi wrap state visit spectacle over substance. Takeaways

Chinese leader Xi Jinping ended his first formal trip to Washington in 11 years Friday, capping a highly anticipated state visit with President Donald Trump that saw three days of bonhomie and pageantry but delivered few concrete agreements.

Trump gave Xi a rare airport tarmac greeting, the two leaders enjoyed a splashy state dinner and tea with their spouses and visited the National Archives. In between ceremonial elements, Trump and Xi inked an extension to an existing trade pact, and Xi promised to send a pair of pandas to Atlanta.

What didn’t happen were promises of purchases or agreement on addressing artificial intelligence risks, the war in Iran or taking steps toward resolving other vexing world challenges.

A state visit that featured much pomp but little change in circumstances might have been intentional.

“Ahead of the midterms, President Trump’s interest is to keep things calm,” Scott Kennedy, a Center for Strategic and International Studies senior advisor who studies the Chinese economy. “We have interest rates getting to record highs, and he doesn’t want to make markets even more skittish.”

For those watching from afar in China, the mood was upbeat.

“I think it’s a great success,” said Hai Zhao, a director of international political studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a state-affiliated think tank. “Chinese people are very happy to see that President Xi is very well received in Washington, D.C.,” he said as the Trump-Xi dinner was wrapping up.

Here’s what to know about the historic visit:

One concrete deliverable came when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the U.S. and China agreed to continue their soon-to-expire trade truce until Jan. 10, a two-month extension of the agreement inked last year.

Without specifying a date, Xi noted a “new joint arrangement” on bilateral trade, according to Beijing’s readout of his meeting with Trump.

The truce, struck after Trump and Xi met in Busan, South Korea, lowered U.S. tariffs and suspended Beijing’s controls on exports of rare earths and critical minerals, among other provisions.

China experts told CNBC a shorter extension could slightly favor the U.S., which can use the prospect of renewed trade hostilities as leverage.

Many had expected a longer, six-month extension. But the shorter time frame could give both sides negotiating leverage into future talks between Xi and Trump. They are expected to meet twice more this year: at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen, China, in November, and the G20 in Miami in December.

After those two events, “I think you need to be cautious that things will not stay as calm as they look right now,” Kennedy said Friday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia.”

“As some have said, on the surface, like a polo match, things look relatively calm, but underneath, there’s a lot of kicking, and that kicking will become more visible as we get to the new year,” he said.

China’s rhetoric has grown notably more confident.

“The Thucydides Trap can be overcome,” Xi said on his arrival at the White House, according to the Chinese side’s official readout.

That contrasts with his rhetorical question when the pair met in May in Beijing of whether the two countries could avoid the Thucydides Trap. The term refers to how tensions historically between a rising and ruling power have often resulted in war. 

Xi said Thursday the two countries can have “healthy” competition without confrontation. “It should be a race of catching up with one another, not a wrestle in which one either wins or loses,” he said.

Establishing a bottom line — on competing intensely without military conflict — is the “most significant political outcome” of the summit, Cui Shoujun, a professor at Renmin University of China’s School of International Studies, said in Chinese, translated by CNBC. “This injected certainty into the volatile bilateral relationship.”

Trump’s comments upon Xi’s arrival at the White House only emphasized general collaboration. The U.S. president has yet to comment on Taiwan around this summit, despite Xi calling on the U.S. to “oppose ‘Taiwan independence,'” according to Beijing’s readout of the two president’s talks on Thursday.

China’s readout also noted Trump and Xi discussed the Middle East situation, without mentioning the Iran war.

However, Zhai Jun, China’s special envoy for the Middle East, said at an event Friday in Singapore that “the Middle East situation was a big issue in the leaders’ discussion that just took place, and the consensus they reached there will be critical to cooling the temperature in the conflict.”

Neither side signaled major steps to curtail AI. That’s despite some tech leaders and U.S. lawmakers sounding alarms about the risks posed by rapidly advancing AI models.

“I want to leave it exactly where it is,” Trump said of AI in a Truth Social post sent before Xi arrived at the White House. “That is China’s position also.”

Xi, speaking at the White House later, struck a different tone, saying the U.S. and China have “both the capability and responsibility to develop and manage AI for good, and ensure that the development of AI is always under human control and serves the well-being of the people.”

The Chinese leader underscored the need for the two countries to cooperate on AI.

Trump and Xi are both being “pulled in two directions” as they balance the aims of breakneck AI growth with concerns about the technology spiraling out of control, Ho-Fung Hung, a China expert and professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, told CNBC.

But it was again a topic where public announcements fell short of specifics, amid a flurry of photo-ops.

“There are a range of issues in this complex relationship that are not really being addressed below the leader-to-leader level in an institutionalized, system-wide manner,” Dewardric McNeal, Longview Global senior policy analyst, told CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime” Thursday afternoon.

Xi was expected to receive red-carpet treatment from Trump, and he got it — literally: A red carpet was rolled out to Xi’s plane on the Joint Base Andrews tarmac, and another appeared at the White House as his motorcade arrived at the South Portico.

Trump and first lady Melania Trump waited for Xi at the airport stairs upon his arrival. It was Trump’s first time traveling to the base to welcome a foreign leader.

That set the tone for a fanfare-filled summit stuffed with displays of synchronized military power from large numbers of service members, who performed music, raised flags and rifles and marched in formation in various locations.

In the newly paved-over Rose Garden, Xi and Trump stood for a military review that included a rooftop performance from the U.S. Army Herald Trumpets and demonstrations from the Army’s Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps, as well as the Marines’ Silent Drill Platoon and its Drum and Bugle Corps.

Service members also conducted low flyovers Wednesday and Thursday – the first of which arrived with a loud roar that drew a flinching grimace from Trump, while Xi had no reaction.

After a private bilateral meeting midday Thursday, Trump gave Xi a tour of the newly built helipad installed outside the White House. “He loves good granite,” Trump said of Xi as the leaders passed reporters en route to the helipad, where they toured the presidential helicopter.

It’s not unusual for a leader to go heavy on hospitality and arrange ornate ceremonies when hosting a state visit, the highest form of leader-to-leader diplomacy. But Trump’s treatment of Xi still stands out.

“Trump has taken the pageantry further than most of his predecessors,” Ryan Hass, director of the Brookings Institution’s John L. Thornton China Center, told CNBC. “The portion of the day devoted to substantive discussion is smaller than the amount of time both leaders will spend on ceremonial affairs.”

The summit overflowed with colorful, large-scale displays of military choreography – but major television networks didn’t air them.

That’s because of a now-ended suspension of so-called TV pool coverage of the White House, implemented in solidarity with MS NOW, CNN and Politico, whom Trump banned last week over what he claims is their harmful reporting.

A federal judge ordered the White House to restore access to the three outlets for up to two weeks, while casting doubt on a claim from the government that the ban is a matter of national security.

Despite the ruling, some journalists from all three outlets were barred from entering the White House on Thursday morning – even as Chinese state media outlets were granted entry. Access was fully restored later Thursday, the Trump administration said in a court filing.

In a Truth Social post Thursday afternoon, Trump railed against the networks for not broadcasting Xi’s arrival, complaining that the moment was “Actually made for Television.”

— CNBC’s Anniek Bao contributed to this report.