Trump heads to China for high-stakes talks with Xi
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of US politics.
Donald Trump is heading to Beijing for high-stakes talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, as they seek to maintain a tentative trade truce while navigating Iran, Taiwan and dominance over global supply chains.
The Iran conflict could serve as a potential source of tension during talks. The US president has sought help from China, a close ally of Iran and the world’s biggest buyer of Iranian oil, to convince Tehran to reopen the strait of Hormuz and end the war. Trump’s first visit to China in nearly nine years had been delayed in the hopes that the US-Israeli war against Iran would be over, and it comes a week after Beijing flaunted its close ties with Tehran by hosting the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi.
For China’s assistance, Xi will probably want something in return, and on top of his list is Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing claims as part of its territory. Analysts say China wants the US to declare opposition to Taiwanese sovereignty and delay, or ultimately limit, arms sales to the island. Trump said yesterday that Washington’s longstanding support for Taiwan’s defence would be on his agenda for the Beijing summit. “President Xi would like us not to, and I’ll have that discussion,” he told reporters. “That’s one of the many things I’ll be talking about.”
The two leaders’ last meeting in October paused a flurry of tit-for-tat trade tariffs in 2025. In February last year, Trump imposed 20% tariffs on China after accusing it of allowing the influx of the drug fentanyl into the US. China responded in kind, slapping tariffs of 15% on coals and liquefied natural gas imported from the US and 10% on oil and agricultural machines.
Trump is scheduled to land in the Chinese capital tomorrow night for the two-day summit. Alongside bilateral meetings, his schedule includes a tour of the Temple of Heaven, a state dinner on Thursday night and tea between the two leaders on Friday before he departs, according to reports.
Key events
Taz Ali
Pete Hegseth begins his speech to the House appropriations’ defence subcommittee by justifying Trump’s defence budget request of $1.5tn.
“President Trump inherited a defence industrial base that had been hollowed out by years of America last policies,” the defense secretary said.
“We are reversing this systemic decay and putting our defence industrial base back on a wartime footing.”
He added: “The $1.5tn budget will ensure the United States continues to maintain the world’s most powerful and capable military.”
Pete Hegseth testifies on Capitol Hill
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth is on Capitol Hill today, answering questions from lawmakers on the House appropriations subcommittee for defense. He’ll face a grilling from members on the White House budget request for the Pentagon, which includes an increase of more than $400bn for the fiscal year 2027 – bringing the total amount to $1.5tn.
Alongside Hegseth is Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine, who is leading the military operation in Iran.
Later, the pair will then face questions from members of the subcommittee’s Senate counterpart.
Trump will begin his day in Washington in meetings, and sitting for an interview. He’ll then start his travel to China for three days of meetings. The president will first fly to Anchorage, Alaska at 2pm ET before finishing his flight to Beijing. We’ll bring you the latest lines as his journey gets under way, particularly if he stops to speak with the press.
Donald Trump has announced on Truth Social that Cuba was asking for help and “we are going to talk”, without elaborating further.
He wrote: “No Republican has ever spoken to me about Cuba, which is a failed country and only heading in one direction – down! Cuba is asking for help, and we are going to talk!!! In the meantime, I’m off to China!”
On the Iran war, Donald Trump said the ongoing fragile ceasefire was “on life support” after dismissing Tehran’s peace proposal as “totally unacceptable”.
“I would call it the weakest, right now, after reading that piece of garbage they sent us – I didn’t even finish reading it,” he told reporters in the Oval Office yesterday.
“I would say the ceasefire is on massive life support, where the doctor walks in and says: ‘Sir, your loved one has approximately a 1% chance of living.’”
Follow our Middle East live blog here for the latest updates:
Donald Trump is heading to China this week. If his guest list is any clue, he wants to discuss technology with Xi Jinping, Blake Montgomery reports.
On Monday, news broke that outgoing Apple CEO, Tim Cook, as well as SpaceX and Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, would join the US president. Other guests from the tech sphere include Meta’s recently appointed president, Dina Powell McCormick; Sanjay Mehrotra, CEO of computer memory maker Micron; Chuck Robbins, CEO of longtime telecom giant Cisco; and Cristiano Amon, CEO of semiconductor maker Qualcomm, according to a White House official.
Whether Trump’s trip will foster a flurry of tech deals, as his Middle East visit did in May 2025, will have to be seen. But while Trump trots out the US’s best and brightest business people – products of his hands-free policy for fostering technological innovation – his administration is taking cues from China’s more stringent approach to AI. China’s laws require AI companies to submit their models to Beijing for review on both security and political sensitivity grounds. The stringent policies prohibit not only threats to national security but also the generation of content that Beijing finds objectionable.
Read more of Blake’s analysis here:
Trump heads to China for high-stakes talks with Xi
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of US politics.
Donald Trump is heading to Beijing for high-stakes talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, as they seek to maintain a tentative trade truce while navigating Iran, Taiwan and dominance over global supply chains.
The Iran conflict could serve as a potential source of tension during talks. The US president has sought help from China, a close ally of Iran and the world’s biggest buyer of Iranian oil, to convince Tehran to reopen the strait of Hormuz and end the war. Trump’s first visit to China in nearly nine years had been delayed in the hopes that the US-Israeli war against Iran would be over, and it comes a week after Beijing flaunted its close ties with Tehran by hosting the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi.
For China’s assistance, Xi will probably want something in return, and on top of his list is Taiwan, a self-governing island that Beijing claims as part of its territory. Analysts say China wants the US to declare opposition to Taiwanese sovereignty and delay, or ultimately limit, arms sales to the island. Trump said yesterday that Washington’s longstanding support for Taiwan’s defence would be on his agenda for the Beijing summit. “President Xi would like us not to, and I’ll have that discussion,” he told reporters. “That’s one of the many things I’ll be talking about.”
The two leaders’ last meeting in October paused a flurry of tit-for-tat trade tariffs in 2025. In February last year, Trump imposed 20% tariffs on China after accusing it of allowing the influx of the drug fentanyl into the US. China responded in kind, slapping tariffs of 15% on coals and liquefied natural gas imported from the US and 10% on oil and agricultural machines.
Trump is scheduled to land in the Chinese capital tomorrow night for the two-day summit. Alongside bilateral meetings, his schedule includes a tour of the Temple of Heaven, a state dinner on Thursday night and tea between the two leaders on Friday before he departs, according to reports.
