BEIJING — President Trump shook hands with Chinese leader Xi Jinping Wednesday to kick off a historic summit between the world’s two most powerful heads of state.
Trump and Xi stood shoulder-to-shoulder outside China’s Great Hall of the People, a massive Communist Party showpiece overlooking Tiananmen Square, during the lavish arrival ceremony.
The handshake marks the seventh face-to-face between Trump and Xi and the pair’s first meeting in China since November 2017.
After greeting each other, the two leaders strolled down a red carpet and shook hands with members of their respective delegations on the steps of the Great Hall.
Xi then shook hands with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, War Secretary Pete Hegseth, White House aides Stephen Miller, Steven Cheung, and James Blair, and the president’s son, Eric Trump, and daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, among others.
Lines of excited young schoolchildren celebrated Trump’s arrival by jumping up and down with bouquets of flowers, while others were holding US and Chinese flags.
“Those children were amazing,” the president would later tell Xi inside the Great Hall.
Trump and Xi then moved to a raised red and gold dais as the Chinese military band played the Star Spangled Banner.
Trump saluted as cannon fire rang out across Tiananmen Square. The Chinese national anthem was played after the American one.
At the dais, Trump and Xi participated in a troop review – inspecting an honor guard of several lines of Chinese troops in various ceremonial uniforms holding bayoneted rifles.
The rapport between the two leaders was the biggest difference between Trump’s 2017 visit and this one, according to an expert.
“What changed tonight was not the ceremony — it was the chemistry,” Isabelle Vladoiu, a business etiquette expert and founder of the US Institute of Diplomacy and Human Rights, explained.
“Compared to the more conservative and rigidly ceremonial interaction in 2017, tonight’s ceremony appeared significantly more jovial, conversational, and personally interactive,” Vladoiu said. “The handshake was longer, the two leaders continued speaking while greeting and walking together, and Xi Jinping — who is typically extremely reserved in public protocol settings — spent considerable time personally engaging with President Trump throughout the ceremony.”
Trump and Xi are expected to lead bilateral talks between the two delegations inside the Great Hall for roughly two hours.
“It’s an honor to be with you. It’s an honor to be your friend, and the relationship between China and the USA is going to be better than ever before,” Trump said at the start of their meeting.
The president touted bringing the “greatest businessmen … the best in the world” with him on the trip.
“I wanted only the top, and they’re here today to pay respects to you and to China, and they look forward to trade and doing business, and it’s going to be totally reciprocal on our behalf,” Trump said.
“I really look very much forward to our discussion,” he added. “It’s a big discussion. There are those that say this is maybe the biggest summit ever.”
The president, who is traveling with about a dozen CEOs, including SpaceX and Tesla’s Elon Musk, Apple’s Tim Cook and NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang, has pledged to call on Xi to “open up” China to American business as his “very first request.”
“I have never seen or heard of any idea that would be more beneficial to our incredible Countries!” Trump wrote on Truth Social Tuesday night.
The meeting comes as the two global superpowers have sought to iron out tensions over recent years.
Last year, Trump slapped massive tariffs on China, which fluctuated frequently and at one point soared into triple digits. During that time, the two economic giants traded barbs, with China imposing restrictions on rare earth exports and the US stopping advanced chip sales that Beijing could use to give it a key boost in the artificial intelligence race.
US investment in China also plunged dramatically.
Despite all that, Trump has frequently highlighted his positive relationship with Xi, and the two countries have made progress on a trade framework aimed at cooling down tensions.
Also on the president’s agenda for this week’s visit are artificial intelligence, nuclear weapons, and human rights — including the imprisonment of tycoon Jimmy Lai, who founded a pro-democracy newspaper in Hong Kong, and Pastor Ezra Jin, a pastor with American family members who was also arrested.
Trump is also expected to discuss the Iran war.
“The Chinese have ships stuck in the Persian Gulf,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News host Sean Hannity ahead of the meeting. “A Chinese cargo got hit over the weekend. I’m sure Iran didn’t do it deliberately but they did it, it happened. And so that’s why these Chinese ships are stuck in there.”
Rubio argued, “It’s in [China’s] interest to resolve this.”
“We hope to convince them to play a more active role in getting Iran to walk away from what they’re doing now and trying to do now in the Persian Gulf.”
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Lawmakers like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have accused China of propping up Iran by providing critical intelligence and funding through oil purchases.
However, Trump has largely dismissed those concerns, telling reporters Tuesday of Xi: “I think he’s been relatively good [on Iran], to be honest with you.”
Meanwhile, Xi is expected to push Trump to tone down US support for Taiwan, a longstanding flashpoint in the US-China relationship.
After the bilateral meeting, Trump will head back to his Beijing hotel and return to the Great Hall later in the evening for a state banquet with Xi.
Trump’s visit to China was postponed from early April due to the ongoing war with Iran.
The president will meet with his Chinese counterpart again on Friday before flying back to Washington.
Trump received a red-carpet welcome at Beijing Capital International Airport earlier Wednesday by US Ambassador to China David Perdue; Xi’s vice president, Han Zheng; China’s Ambassador to Washington Xie Feng; and Executive Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Ma Zhaoxu.
The official party was accompanied by a military band and honor guard, as well as 300 youths singing a welcome message and waving American and Chinese flags in time to the band’s music.
Trump greeted the crowd with his signature fist pumps.
