Trump Welcomes China's Xi To Washington For High-Stakes State Visit

Welcome back and alive now from Fox. I'm your host, Sienna Marsig. President Trump has officially welcomed President Xi into the United States on the tarmac. They're in this rare gesture. President Xi here for the three-day state visit. We are, of course, watching closely for that face-to-face greeting, although we did not see that live on camera of the arrival. The usual presidential TV press pool may not have their cameras out at JVA amid that ongoing dispute over White House media access, so coverage of the president's moments couldn't be more limited than usual. But whether we see that movement live or bring you the reports afterwards, the symbolism behind this visit here is very significant. We saw President Trump receive an elaborate welcome from President Xi when he visited China earlier this year. And now President Xi is here in Washington, and the two leaders are preparing for some very consequential conversations on trade, technology, Taiwan, rare earths, and more. I want to bring into the conversation right now Orville Schell, who is the vice president of the Center of U.S.-China Relations for the Asia Society. Thanks so much for joining us here on Live Now from Fox. Pleasure. I want to start by asking you, what can we actually learn from the way that these two leaders greet one another? Well, I think Xi Jinping will be the way he normally is, is rather reserved, disciplined, and not a particularly demonstrative person. But I think Donald Trump is very eager to make a big impression. And this, I believe, is the first time any American president has been to join Andrews Air Force Base to greet the arrival of a head of state, or at least one from China. So this is, I think, him trying to really show a sort of special favor for Xi, something which he did in the May summit in Beijing. He was incredibly solicitous, incredibly obliging, and praised him to the stars. So I think this will be a good start. I think Xi Jinping will appreciate it. But I also think Xi Jinping may be a little bewildered by the behavior of our president, because he can be very friendly and very collegiate sometimes, and sometimes very hostile and very aggressive. And I'm just going to read real quick this email that we're getting from the White House press pool. They had a 100-foot long red carpet. They had a salute, a 21-person honor, two three-person color teams to include the U.S. and Chinese flag. Those are just a small amount on the list of things that they had for President Xi. They had B-1 flyovers. So much effort put into this welcome here. What does that tell you about how President Trump wants to show up for these meetings with President Xi? Well, I think, obviously, he views China as an extraordinarily important country, whether it's a partner, an adversary, a friend. I mean, all of that is kind of in a state of ambiguity. But I think it also shows that he is very drawn to men who are powerful, who come from large countries, and who succeed in getting stuff done. And this is what makes him, I think, quite enchanted by people like Xi Jinping and even Vladimir Putin. These guys don't get checked and balanced by anybody, and they sort of do what they want to do. And I think that is Trump's M.O. too. Do you see this as mainly a diplomatic theater event, or does this kind of personal gesture actually matter when you're really trying to manage a relationship that is just so complicated? I think it actually does matter. And I mean, one thing I can say that we should watch very carefully as the summit proceeds. You remember when we were in the Cold War, deep in the Cold War with China, and Nixon and Kissinger went to China, and they did accord to Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai a real measure of respect. And in fact, Zhou Enlai said that, or Kissinger said of Zhou Enlai, that he was one of the men he most respected in the world. He found a very good statesman. So they did kind of let the political questions, the human rights questions, the forced labor questions, all of these other things sort of drift away. Remember, that in 1972 was in the middle of the Cultural Revolution. So Trump, by conferring this sort of honorific treatment on Xi, is in effect doing something like this. But whether Trump will be as credible as Nixon and Kissinger were, or whether Xi Jinping is inclined to reciprocate, we should wait and see. He did not reciprocate much in Beijing in May. So Trump looked a little bit over the top, gave a lot, didn't get much. And obviously, trade has been a really center point of the U.S. and China relationship. Where do you see the most realistic room maybe for an agreement this week? And where are those two sides still really far apart? Well, I think what both sides in different ways are looking for is just some maintenance of the status quo. In other words, China will continue to sell critical minerals and rare earths, which they agreed to do in Korea. And that agreement ends in November. And on the other hand, I think Xi would love to see Trump say, okay, arms sales, we're going to hold them up for a while to see if we can't make some other kinds of deals, keep them in advance. And that would be a major move, because no president since 1979, when diplomatic relations were conferred on China by Jimmy Carter and Deng Xiaoping, has there been any question that arms sales to Taiwan, which are mandated by legislature, by the Taiwan Relations Act, should be discussed with leaders in Beijing. And of course, we know rare earth minerals have become a major source of leverage for China. How important is that issue to this meeting? You know, sometimes something that involves very small quantities is an absolute critical thing in someone's supply chain. So for the United States, we have no capacity really to mine rare earths, but even less capacity to process them. Whereas China has mines in China and elsewhere, and also controls over 90% of the processing of them. There are 17 of them that are very important to military hardware, to microchip manufacturing, other kinds of electronic equipment, and to the making of cars. And the Ford Motor Car Company had to cease production for a while when China last held up the export to America of rare earths. AI, of course, is another very important piece of this, a big picture as both countries are kind of competing in that AI race. What do you anticipate those conversations to be like? I think it's going to be very, very hard. I mean, the truth is, yes, there is a common interest. I think both the United States and China, both leaders, or both countries, Trump doesn't seem so worried about it. He basically thinks we shouldn't control AI because he'd like to win the competition with China. But China, I think, is concerned because it is a society in which control is very important. And the Minister of State Security, Chen Yixin, recently said that this was a real matter that China had to get a hand on to keep AI from running away with itself. Never has a Ministry of State Security or a Minister of Public Security said anything like that in public. And of course, there's Taiwan, which is arguably one of the most sensitive topics there on the table set to be discussed. How much do you expect President Xi to maybe press President Trump on Taiwan? And how carefully will President Trump have to navigate that conversation? Well, Xi Jinping will press him very, very hard, already has. He keeps reiterating that this is a core interest, very important to him. And Xi Jinping has made the issue even more important than past leaders by saying that sooner rather than later, Taiwan must return to the embrace of the motherland, meaning China. So this comes up again and again and again. And I think Trump's feeling of urgency to sort of win points with Xi Jinping, to win him over in some way, will play a very strong role in whether the United States is willing to make some major concessions on the Taiwan arms sales. So as you know, we are obliged by law to give China sufficient arms to protect itself against a forcible takeover. That's a legislative act. But what Trump can do, there's $14 billion worth of arms that have been authorized. He can sort of slow up the delivery. Of course, we know Iran is another wild card. How much leverage does China actually have when it comes to Iran? I think China has had traditionally a rather close relationship with Iran, buys 90 odd percent of its oil. They've helped them on missile technology in the past, and the foreign minister has made several trips to Beijing in the last couple of months. So it's quite close, but they don't crawl about it. They just quietly keep up their relationship. So I think they actually could do a great deal, but I don't think they're in any hurry to help the United States get out of the pickle we've gotten ourselves in, in the Straits of Hormuz. So Xi Jinping kind of quietly nods and says he'll do what he can, and then not much happens. Let's talk about that big state dinner that is set to happen tomorrow night. It's going to be an extraordinary event, according to the White House, and we're seeing some very, very big names, especially in technology, in the room. Why is it so significant that people like Tim Cook and Jensen Huang, as well as Sam Altman, are all going to be a part of this dinner? Well, you'll recall that they also went to Beijing in May. You'll recall that Jensen Huang, when President Trump discovered he wasn't on Air Force One, when they landed for refueling in Alaska, he had made a call to Jensen saying, get in your plane right now, fly to Alaska, meet us there, and get on Air Force One and come along. I think this is Trump's way of adding clout to his diplomacy, that he has all these very high on the periodic table entrepreneurs worth billions, trillions of dollars, and they're kind of his posse, and now they're back again in Washington. I think Xi Jinping said that he might bring some businessmen. I'm not aware yet that there was a great coterie of them on his plane, but we'll see. Of course, we've seen these two leaders now interact multiple times. What have you learned about their personal relationship that might help us understand just how they negotiate with one another? Well, I think Xi Jinping is a little more obvious. One of the things that is often missed is that President Trump drives a great deal of his power by simply being unpredictable. We've seen that over the period of his two terms. I mean, he's gone from being incredibly anti-China, hostile, throwing huge tariffs at them, and claiming that the Chinese interfered in the election, to also being incredibly friendly and sort of trying to court Xi Jinping with this notion that he and Donald Trump have a special relationship. What Xi makes of all of that, I'm not sure. But for Donald Trump, I think that is the object of this trip, to really buddy up with him so that he could pick up the phone and say, hey, let's kind of try to work this out or that out. But alas, to date, they haven't worked much out. And when you is over, what would you need to see to say something really meaningful was actually accomplished? Something more than just China buying a few more soybeans, a few more Boeing aircraft and some beef. And I mean, we're something sort of fundamental change. I mean, there is an international commission on investment, but to try to make it easier for China to invest in the United States by setting areas that are not in contravention of national security, but not much has happened. So I think we want to look and see if there's any major switch in the fundamentally antagonistic relationship that has existed between the two countries because they're very different political systems and their competition in trade. I mean, remember that China has a huge global trade deficit. It's come down a little in the United States. But all those goods have gone off to places like Europe and Europe isn't happy about it. So the question is, what's China going to do with all of the stuff it manufactures, but is unable to consume at home? And Donald Trump is very allergic to coming here because he wants to cultivate greater manufacturing sector in the United States. All right, Orville, thanks so much for joining us to help us understand this visit a little bit better. We appreciate you. Good. Thank you.