Donald Trump just said his visit had been “incredible” and “I think a lot of good has come of it”.
“We’ve made some fantastic trade deals for both countries,” the US president said.
double quotation mark We’ve settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to solve.
Trump said his relationship with Xi Jinping was “a very strong one”.
Sitting beside Xi in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound, Trump also said:
double quotation mark We did discuss Iran. We feel very similar about [how] we want it to end. We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. We want the strait open.”
He also said that “we want them to get it ended because it’s a crazy thing there”.
Asian stocks mostly retreated on Friday as investors watched for developments from the Trump-Xi summit and the Iran war.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.2% after rising earlier in the day. South Korea’s K ospi lost 3.2%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 0.9%, the Shanghai Composite index edged up 0.1%. Australia’s S+P/ASX 200 dipped 0.1%.
Taiwan’s Taiex traded 0.5% lower and India’s Sensex was up 0.1%.
While there is optimism over US-China relations, some analysts are suggesting any deals should be viewed cautiously, the AP reports.
“Headline deals should be looked at with a healthy degree of scepticism,” wrote Leahy Fahy. Julian Evans-Pritchard, China economists at Capital Economics, in a Friday note.
A number of the promised projects. investments that came out of US-China deals from Donald Trump ’s last China visit in 2017 did not end up materialising, they said, as tensions between Washington and Beijing elevated rapidly during the few years after that.
Oil prices climbed early on Friday amid the stalled US-Iran talks over the war. with brent crude – the international standard – 1.3% higher at $107.06 per barrel.
Trump’s final hours in Beijing are being spent in Xi Jinping’s private residence. a secretive site near the Forbidden City that few foreigners – or even locals – will ever get a glimpse of.
Trump will have lunch there with Xi before leaving Beijing in the early afternoon. less than 48 hours after he landed.
At a busy intersection near Trump’s hotel. the crowds that gathered to catch a glimpse of the presidential motorcade were thinner on Friday morning than on Thursday evening, with the heavy police presence encouraging people not to loiter. Many grumbled about the inconvenience caused by the repeated road closures. Asked for their views on Trump, the word that came up again and again from Beijingers was “unpredictable”. “What he says isn’t necessarily what it means,” said one Trump-watcher, who declined to give his name.
As Trump. Xi hold their final talks in Beijing, the White House has shared the list of participants for the meetings.
Trump is joined by David Purdue, the US ambassador to China; secretary of state Marco Rubio; treasury secretary Scott Bessent; defense secretary Pete Hegseth. US trade representative Jamieson Greer.
Xi is joined by Xie Feng, China’s ambassador to the US; Cai Qi, a director of the central committee of the Communist party of China; foreign affairs minister Wang Yi; deputy foreign affairs minister Ma Zhaoxu;. He Lifeng, vice-premier of the state council.
According to the Associated Press. Donald Trump did something highly unusual for him over the two days of meetings with Xi: he held his tongue in front of the media.
Trump relishes taking reporters’ questions, often doing so nearly every day in the US.
But Xi, like most China’s senior leadership, refrains from press conferences.
In what might have been deference to Xi. Trump didn’t answer questions when reporters asked them while the pair toured the Temple of Heaven on Thursday.
And he didn’t do so again on Friday while walking with Xi at Zhongnanhai.
Returning now to Trump’s earlier comments on Iran. the US president said his patience with Iran was running out after he discussed the war with Xi Jinping on Thursday.
It came as a ship was reportedly seized by Iranian personnel off the United Arab Emirates.
The White House said Trump. Xi had agreed during their summit talks on the need to keep the strait of Hormuz open.
“I am not going to be much more patient,” Trump told Fox News’ Hannity program in an interview. “They should make a deal.”
In the latest incidents in the strait of Hormuz. an Indian cargo vessel carrying livestock from Africa to the UAE was sunk on Wednesday in waters off the coast of Oman.
India condemned the attack and said all 14 crew had been rescued by the Omani coast guard.
Vanguard. a British maritime security advisory firm, said the vessel was believed to have been hit by a missile or drone which caused an explosion.
Before they sat together, Trump and Xi spent about 10 minutes walking in the gardens of the Zhongnanhai compound.
“These are the most beautiful roses anyone has ever seen,” Trump reportedly said while walking past green columns and archways.
Xi later said he would send some rose seeds to Trump “as a gift”.
Donald Trump just said his visit had been “incredible” and “I think a lot of good has come of it”.
“We’ve made some fantastic trade deals for both countries,” the US president said.
double quotation mark We’ve settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to solve.
Trump said his relationship with Xi Jinping was “a very strong one”.
Sitting beside Xi in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound, Trump also said:
double quotation mark We did discuss Iran. We feel very similar about [how] we want it to end. We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. We want the strait open.”
He also said that “we want them to get it ended because it’s a crazy thing there”.
Xi Jinping and Donald Trump are now sitting together in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound complex and Xi is speaking.
Before these final meetings of the Beijing summit. Donald Trump suggested that hunting down Iran’s enriched uranium was primarily for political optics, after Israel demanded it as a goal.
“I just feel better if I got it, actually,. it’s – I think, it’s more for public relations than it is for anything else,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity in an interview from China.
“The other thing we could do is bomb it again,” Trump said. “But I, just, I would feel better getting it, and we will get it.”
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. who alongside Trump ordered the attacks on Iran that began on 28 February, said in a recent interview that the war was “not over” because the sensitive nuclear material “has to be taken out” of the country, Agence France-Presse reports.
Iran has not confirmed the location of its highly enriched uranium. which some experts believe could be buried deep underground, making the task of seizing it prohibitively difficult without precise intelligence.
Trump. in a social media post on Friday referring to his second administration’s achievements, said they included “the military decimation of Iran (to be continued!)”.
Donald Trump has reportedly arrived at Beijing’s Zhongnanhai complex – China’s leadership compound – for a meeting with Xi Jinping.
The two leaders are set to pose together in the gardens of the walled-off compound – next to the Chinese capital’s Forbidden City –. then have a working tea and a closed-door lunch.
Afterwards their two-day summit wraps up and the US president is to leave China for Washington on Friday afternoon.
The US trade representative also said rare earth exports from China to the US were improving. Beijing was still slow to approve some shipments.
Jamieson Greer told Bloomberg TV that China was still dragging its feet with some export licenses. US officials had to intervene on the behalf of affected companies.
“I would give them a passing grade on this,” he said in the interview.
double quotation mark We’ve certainly seen the rare earths come back up to better levels. Sometimes it’s slow. There are times when we have to go and make our point.”
China introduced the rare earth export controls in April 2025 in retaliation for Donald Trump’s tariffs,. the controls reportedly continue to tightly restrict exports of some rare earths despite a deal last October in which the White House says Beijing agreed to allow shipments to freely flow.
See our quick explainer here on why rare earths are so important. have been a flashpoint in diplomacy and trade:
Greer was also asked on Bloomberg TV if the one-year trade truce with China expiring this October would be extended as a result of the Beijing summit. He responded:
double quotation mark We’ll see about that.. there’s certainly a willingness on both sides that – if this continues to work out well for each country – to continue that,. to extend this ability to make sure we’re getting rare earths, that we’re selling the types of things we should be selling to China, and we’re trying to manage differences rather than escalate them.”
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