WASHINGTON: Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Washington on Wednesday, where he was met with a rare planeside greeting from President Donald Trump after their top officials agreed to extend a trade truce until January.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the extension of the truce \u2014 under which the countries agreed to scale back tariffs and refrain from imposing new trade restrictions \u2014 during a Fox News Channel interview as Trump welcomed Xi at Joint Base Andrews just outside Washington.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know whether a bigger deal can be done. I don\u2019t know whether we will just roll the current deal,\u201d Bessent said in the interview, noting the extension would give the leaders more time to talk about the issues at upcoming meetings in China in November and Florida in December.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s decision to greet Xi as he landed, rather than waiting for him to drive up to the White House, shows how far the US president is willing to go to honor China\u2019s leader as he made his first state visit to the US capital in more than a decade.<\/p>\n
A 100-foot (30 meter) long red carpet was unfurled at the bottom of the staircase placed at the door of Xi\u2019s plane. A 21-person honor guard was arrayed on the sides of the carpet and Trump and first lady Melania Trump stood near a staircase on the side of the plane, where they greeted Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, with handshakes.<\/p>\n
The welcome ceremony also included a flyover by two B-1 bombers, platoons from each military service, and a presentation of the flags and anthems of both countries. Trump and his wife spoke to their counterparts, but their words could not be heard. Trump, who wore gloves and an overcoat though it was a relatively warm 63 degrees Fahrenheit (17 degrees Celsius) outside, removed one of his gloves to shake hands with Xi. At one point, he slapped Xi on the back and said something to him that was inaudible.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they appreciate it, tremendous people,\u201d Trump said to reporters after he returned to the White House Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n
In a statement marking his arrival in the US, China\u2019s leader wrote that his country and the US \u201cshould be partners, not rivals. Achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and making America great again can go hand in hand and the two countries can contribute to each other\u2019s success, thereby benefiting the wider world.\u201d<\/p>\n
The salutation kicks off a three-day visit that\u2019s expected to be saturated with pomp, even by White House standards. The state visit, complete with a formal state dinner at the White House on Thursday, is supposed to reciprocate the ceremonial grandeur that marked Trump\u2019s May visit to China.<\/p>\n
But it also is a showy patina at a time when tensions between the two geopolitical rivals are high over trade, artificial intelligence, Trump\u2019s war with Iran and China\u2019s designs on Taiwan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Washington on Wednesday, where he was met with a rare planeside greeting from President Donald Trump after their top officials agreed to extend a trade truce until January. Trump\u2019s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the extension of the truce \u2014 under which the countries agreed to scale back …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":103427,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103428,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103411\/revisions\/103428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}