Trump touts business wins as China airs Iran, Taiwan concerns

By Trevor Hunnicutt and Liz Lee

May 14, 202611:02 PM GMT+1Updated 28 mins ago

Item 1 of 7 U.S. President Donald Trump participates in a friendship walk through Zhongnanhai Garden with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, China, May 15, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci/Pool

[1/7]U.S. President Donald Trump participates in a friendship walk through Zhongnanhai Garden with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, China, May 15, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci/Pool Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

• Summary
• Companies

• Xi warns that mishandling Taiwan issue could lead to conflict
• Iran war ‘should have never happened’, Beijing says
• Leaders meet for tea and lunch on last day of summit
• Boeing shares slump after orders missed expectations
• U.S. officials tout deals on farm goods, beef and energy

BEIJING, May 15 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump entered his final talks with Xi Jinping on Friday touting economic wins that gave markets little ​to cheer, while Beijing warned Washington about mishandling Taiwan and said its war with Iran should never have started.

Trump is making the first visit by a U.S. president to China, America’s main ‌strategic and economic rival, since his last in 2017, and has been seeking tangible results to beef up his dented approval ratings ahead of crucial midterm elections.

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“We’ve made some fantastic trade deals, great for both countries,” Trump said, seated beside Xi in a decorative red armchair at the opulent Zhongnanhai complex, a former imperial garden that houses the offices of Chinese leaders.

Earlier, they had chatted and strolled outside, with Trump remarking about the beautiful roses and Xi promising to send him seeds for the flowers, before a ​lunch of lobster balls, Kung Pao scallops and shrimp dumplings.

But as Trump prepared for his final meeting, China’s foreign ministry issued a blunt statement outlining its frustration with the Iran war.

“This conflict, which ​should never have happened, has no reason to continue,” the ministry said, adding that China was supporting efforts to reach a peace deal in a war that ⁠had severely affected energy supplies and the global economy.

At Zhongnanhai, Trump said the leaders had discussed Iran and felt “very similar”, though Xi did not comment.

Trump had been expected to urge China to convince Iran to make a ​deal with Washington to end a war that has pushed up prices and made him politically vulnerable at home.

But analysts doubt Xi will be willing to push Tehran hard or end support for its military, given Iran’s value to Beijing ​as a strategic counterweight to the US.

A brief U.S. summary of Thursday’s talks highlighted what the White House called the leaders’ shared desire to reopen the Strait of Hormuz off Iran and Xi’s apparent interest in American oil purchases to pare China’s dependence on Middle East supply.

A fifth of global supplies of oil and liquefied natural gas travel through the Strait in normal times.

BOEING SHARES SLIDE ON UNDERWHELMING DEAL

U.S. officials said they had also agreed deals to sell farm goods, beef and energy to China, with progress ​on setting up mechanisms to manage future trade, and both sides expected to identify $30 billion of non-sensitive goods.They’re gonna do a lot00:0300:40

There were scant details of the deals, however, and no signs of a breakthrough on selling Nvidia’s (NVDA.O), opens new tab advanced H200 AI chips ​to China, despite CEO Jensen Huang’s dramatic last-minute addition to the trip.

Trump told Fox News that China had agreed to order 200 Boeing BA.N jets, its first purchase of U.S.-made commercial jets in nearly a decade, but that was far short of ‌the roughly 500 ⁠markets had expected, and Boeing shares fell more than 4%.

“For the market, the summit can be strategically reassuring while underwhelming in substance,” said Chim Lee, senior China analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

The main achievement of the summit may be maintaining a fragile trade truce struck when the leaders last met in October and Trump suspended triple-digit tariffs on Chinese goods while Xi backed away from choking off supplies of vital rare earths.