U.S. President Donald Trump (R) is greeted by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People on May 14, 2026 in Beijing, China. The trip by Trump is focused on trade, regional security, and strengthening bilateral ties between the world’s two largest economies.China Pool | Getty Images News | Getty ImagesBEIJING — U.S. President Donald Trump met his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing on Thursday morning, kickstarting a high-stakes summit that is expected to cover trade, tariffs, Taiwan and Iran, and runs through Friday.The relationship between the two countries is going to be “better than ever before,” Trump told Xi in his opening remarks, according to official broadcast footage. Trump, who also visited China in 2017 in his first term, said the two leaders have known each other personally for longer than any other U.S. or Chinese president. Speaking just ahead of Trump, Xi noted the global attention on the meeting, and said a major question for the two countries was whether they could avoid the “Thucydides Trap,” according to an official English translation of his Chinese remarks broadcast by CCTV. The Thucydides Trap refers to how tensions historically between a rising and ruling power have often resulted in a war. Graham Allison, the Harvard professor who popularized the concept, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” that he expects the trade truce Trump and Xi reached at their meeting in South Korea last fall will become a formal agreement. Xi also said that Taiwan was the most important issue for U.S.-China relations, and if not handled well it would push the bilateral relationship to a “dangerous” place, according to state media. Beijing considers Taiwan, a democratically self-ruled island, part of its territory. The island’s ruling party rejects that claim. In addition to posing the rhetorical question of whether …
