Trump meeting with Xi in Beijing at high-stakes summit amid US war with Iran

By Kevin Shalvey
May 13, 2026, 9:47 PM

President Donald Trump is meeting in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping for a multi-day summit, during which Trump said he'd seek to deepen diplomatic and economic ties between the world's two largest economic powers.

As they sat down to meet at the Great Hall of the People, Trump called Xi a "great leader" and touted their relationship.

"Such respect for China, the job you've done. You're a great leader. I say it to everybody. You're a great leader," Trump said. "Sometimes people don't like me saying it, but I say it anyway, because it's true. I always say the truth."

"We've had a fantastic relationship. We've gotten along," Trump said. "When there were difficulties, we worked it out. I would call you, and you would call me, and whenever we had a problem -- people don't know -- whenever we had a problem, we worked it out very quickly, and we're going to have a fantastic future together."

Xi told Trump that China and the U.S. "both stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation."

"We should be partners, not rivals," he continued. "We should help each other succeed and prosper together and find the right way for major countries to get along well with each other in the new era."

Ahead of the visit, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News that the U.S. will urge China to take a more assertive role in resolving the U.S.'s war with Iran during Trump's meeting with Xi.

"It's in their interest to resolve this. We hope to convince them to play a more active role in getting Iran to walk away from what they're doing now and trying to do now in the Persian Gulf," Rubio said during an interview taped on Air Force One Tuesday while Rubio and Trump were on their way to Beijing.

"We've made clear to them, you know, that any support for Iran would obviously be detrimental for our relationship. That obviously is going to come up in this conversation," Rubio said.

After Trump's meeting with Xi, they'll attend a state banquet Thursday night, according to the White House.

"We have a lot of things to discuss," Trump said on Tuesday as he departed the White House, where he fielded questions about what would be on the table during the high-stakes summit. The summit begins as the effects of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran continue to ripple around the globe and the U.S. economy remains a pressing issue at home.

The president was asked whether the pair would discuss diplomatic ways to end the war with Iran, which is in its third month. China is a key buyer of Iranian oil, which could give it considerable diplomatic leverage over Tehran, experts told ABC News. Trump said the U.S. had Iran "very much under control," adding that it would be among the topics discussed.

"We're either going to make a deal or they're going to be decimated, one way or the other. We win," Trump said. "We're going to be talking about, we're going to be talking with President Xi."

Trump said on social media on Tuesday that he planned to ask Xi to "open up" the Chinese economy. The U.S. delegation includes Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. CEOs Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX, Tim Cook of Apple and Jensen Huang of NVIDIA as well as the president's son Eric Trump and daughter-in-law Lara Trump were also present.

Trump said the business leaders joined him to "pay respects" to Xi. 

"We asked the top 30 in the world. Every single one of them said 'yes,' and I didn't want the second or the third in the company. I wanted only the top. And they're here today to pay respects to you and to China, and they look forward to trade and doing business, and it's going to be totally reciprocal on our behalf," Trump said.

The White House said one of Trump's goals going into the summit with Xi is to secure purchasing agreements with China in the aerospace, agriculture and energy sectors and the CEOs traveled with the president to help push for that.

China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Guo Jiakun, said that the scheduled diplomatic meetings were expected to play "an irreplaceable role in providing strategic guidance for China-U.S. relations."

"During the visit, the two heads of state will have an in-depth exchange of views on major issues concerning China-U.S. relations and world peace and development," Guo added, according to a transcript published by the ministry. "China stands ready to work with the U.S. to expand cooperation and manage differences in the spirit of equality, respect and mutual benefit, and provide more stability and certainty for a transforming and volatile world."

ABC News' Mariam Khan and Fritz Farrow contributed to this report.