U.S. President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met for the second time this year to much fanfare but little in the way of grand bargains.

Transcript

A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have met all over the world in the last 10 years, but this week, for the first time, they met at the White House.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

Trump hosted Xi for a lavish state dinner last night. The U.S. president literally rolled out the red carpet for the Chinese leader as they discussed artificial intelligence, trade and the Iran war. In a few moments, we'll discuss what was accomplished with former U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns. We begin with the news.

MARTÍNEZ: NPR White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram joins us now to discuss all of this. So, Deepa, what kinds of things of substance came out of the meetings in the summit?

DEEPA SHIVARAM, BYLINE: Yeah. I mean, there were no major announcements, but there were a few concrete takeaways from the summit. The first is the U.S. announced a two-month extension of the trade agreement between the countries, which was established last year when Trump and Xi met in South Korea.

SHIVARAM: And there were also discussions about artificial intelligence. U.S. and Chinese officials had deliberated over information-sharing systems that would help alert each other over AI incidents that would affect national security. And that would've been a huge development in AI security globally because there aren't a lot of guardrails that exist for this technology. But it's unclear how far that proposal on AI will actually go because in his remarks on Thursday morning, Trump was clear that on AI, he wants to, quote, "leave it exactly where it is." Trump has been opposed to any kind of regulation around the technology and often speaks about beating China on AI.

Overall, though, I mean, there were low expectations for anything major to come out of this summit, A. The meeting had more of an emphasis on Trump and Xi's personal relationship, more surface-level rhetoric about the friendship between the two countries. Xi, I will say, made several comments about the responsibility the U.S. and China have to cooperate and communicate.

MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. State visits usually involve some level of pomp and circumstance. Really seemed, though, like President Trump wanted to go all out to welcome Xi to the White House. You heard Leila mention literally rolling out the red carpet.

SHIVARAM: Yeah.

MARTÍNEZ: What did that entail?

SHIVARAM: Yeah. I mean, the welcome that Xi got was actually unusual because Trump met him on the tarmac when he arrived in Washington, and at the White House, you know, Trump's been doing all kinds of construction projects, and he's talked up things like building the helipad on the South Lawn as something to show off during Xi's visit. And sure enough, Trump showcased the new helipad, had military flyovers, even gave Xi a tour of sorts of the South Lawn and some of the construction he's been working on. It definitely did seem like there was a bigger red-carpet rollout than usual for this visit.

I talked to Samm Sacks about all of this. She's a senior fellow at think tank New America. And she actually said the pageantry had some significance because tensions between the U.S. and China have been ramping up so much.

SAMM SACKS: I don't want to understate the importance of pageantry at this moment because things have been so toxic. And so the pageantry itself creates a kind of breathing space that is stabilizing.

SHIVARAM: What's interesting, though, is that because of Trump's ban on three media outlets, there wasn't any TV coverage of all of this. Trump posted about it on Truth Social yesterday and complained about how the major TV networks didn't show the, quote, "made-for-television" moments.

MARTÍNEZ: All right. So what are we looking forward to when it comes to Trump and Xi?

SHIVARAM: Well, a couple of announcements from Xi yesterday included the news that two new Chinese pandas are coming to the zoo in Atlanta. I know the bar was low for major takeaways, but panda diplomacy remains alive and well. But...

MARTÍNEZ: Most overhyped black-and-white animal, the panda. But that's another topic for another day.

SHIVARAM: Another time. Another time. But honestly, the real, you know, conversation between the U.S. and China simply just continues. The door is open for Trump and Xi to meet possibly two more times before the end of this year. China's hosting the APEC summit in November, and that's the same summit where Trump and Xi met on the sidelines of last year in Korea. And it would be significant if Trump traveled to China for the second time this year, and then it's possible Xi could come back to the U.S., where Trump is hosting the G20 summit in Miami in December.

MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Deepa Shivaram. Thanks a lot.

SHIVARAM: Thank you.

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