Xi Presses Trump on Taiwan as They Agree to Meet in China in April
In an unusual move, Xi Jinping, the leader of China, called President Trump. The two spoke about trade, Taiwan and Ukraine, according to separate official statements.
President Trump said on Monday that he had accepted an invitation from Xi Jinping, China’s leader, to visit Beijing in April. That occurred while the two leaders discussed several major issues between their nations, including Taiwan, the Ukraine war and lackluster Chinese purchases of American soybeans, according to separate official accounts of their call earlier in the day.
In an unusual move, the call was initiated by Mr. Xi, and it came after weeks of rising tensions between China and Japan over Taiwan. It also followed a weekend in which top aides to Mr. Trump pushed Ukrainian officials in Geneva to move forward on terms of a proposed peace settlement with Russia, China’s partner — a settlement that Russian leaders have not agreed to.
Mr. Trump told reporters in late October that he would visit Beijing in April after he and Mr. Xi held a summit in South Korea. American and Chinese officials meeting then in Busan agreed to a yearlong truce that has rolled back many of the tariffs Mr. Trump imposed on China, and the retaliatory measures Beijing took in return.
In a social media post on Monday afternoon, Mr. Trump said it was a “very good telephone call” that touched on Ukraine, China’s exports of chemicals used to make fentanyl and its purchases of farm products. He described the call as a “follow up to our highly successful meeting in South Korea” and said there had been significant progress on both sides in meeting those commitments.
“Now we can set our sights on the big picture,” Mr. Trump said. “To that end, President Xi invited me to visit Beijing in April, which I accepted, and I reciprocated where he will be my guest for a State Visit in the U.S. later in the year.”
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told reporters outside the White House on Monday that Mr. Trump spoke with Mr. Xi for about an hour. The two spoke about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she said, but “the focus was mainly on the trade deal that we are working on with China.”
Mr. Trump also spoke about the needs of American farmers, she said. Overall, Mr. Trump is “pleased with what we’ve seen from the Chinese,” Ms. Leavitt said.
Mr. Trump and Ms. Leavitt did not mention Taiwan in their summaries. But Chinese state news organizations stressed that Mr. Xi had “clarified China’s principled position” on Taiwan, a self-governing, democratic island that China lays claim to. Mr. Xi emphasized “that Taiwan’s return to China is an important part of the postwar international order,” state news reports said.
“While Beijing emphasized the discussion on Taiwan and Ukraine in today’s leaders’ call, Trump to no surprise focused on economic and trade issues,” said Wendy Cutler, a senior vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute and a former senior U.S. trade official.
The issue of Taiwan did not come up at the summit in Busan. However, tensions over Taiwan between China and Japan, America’s closest ally in Asia, have soared this month. Japan’s new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, told Parliament on Nov. 7 that an attempt by China to blockade or invade Taiwan could prompt Japan to intervene with military force — the first time in recent memory that a Japanese leader has made this kind of remark. China denounced her comment and threatened reprisals.
Ms. Takaichi’s comment echoed the four separate statements that President Joseph R. Biden Jr. made when he vowed that the American military would defend Taiwan against any Chinese invasion. Mr. Trump has been more circumspect and has not said what he would do if China tried to seize Taiwan.
Mr. Xi has no doubt noted that, and his call was an apparent effort to move the American president closer to Beijing’s perspective and to get Washington to rein in Tokyo. Hours after those two spoke, Mr. Trump called Ms. Takaichi, and they spoke about China, she told reporters in Tokyo.
According to the official Chinese summary, Mr. Xi made the unusual argument of telling Mr. Trump that China and the United States “fought side by side against fascism and militarism” during World War II, when Japan was their common enemy, and that the issue of Taiwan should not be allowed to destabilize the historical partnership established then.
“Beijing is rattled by the Japan flare-up because it sees a regional coalition coalescing around the idea that Taiwan’s security is a shared stake — and that any Chinese quarantine or attack would draw a coordinated response,” said Craig Singleton, a senior director for China at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington research group that advocates a confrontational stance on China.
“By pressing Trump directly, Xi is trying to get Washington to reinforce Beijing’s preferred narrative before that coalition hardens,” he added.
Mr. Biden’s security strategy in Asia had been to build up alliances and partnerships to forge a united front to counter China’s aggressive military moves throughout the region, including in the Taiwan Strait.
The Chinese state media summary also said the leaders discussed the situation in Ukraine on Monday.
Throughout the Ukraine war, analysts have noted the similarities in how President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia regards Ukraine and how Mr. Xi sees Taiwan. Both view those territories as ones that must be brought under the control of their governments in order to restore the historical Russian and Chinese empires.
Mr. Xi has remained a close partner of Mr. Putin during the Ukraine war, and China has supported Russia’s defense industry while avoiding sending potent arms to the Russian military. Mr. Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 helped destabilize diplomatic and trade ties around the world, and Chinese officials have had some anxiety about the persistent global costs of the war.
Mr. Trump has said he would like to get the war to end as soon as possible. Mr. Xi could see an opening now to offer help to Mr. Trump on this in exchange for concessions from Washington on issues such as Taiwan and tariffs.
Although the United States and China have greeted the prospect of an economic truce, U.S. officials have appeared wary in recent weeks about whether all the promises made at the summit in Busan would be fulfilled.
Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, said this month that the United States and China were still working on details of an agreement that would guarantee the flow of valuable rare earth minerals from China. Beijing clamped down on exports of those products this year amid the trade clash, causing anxiety among automakers and other companies that need the minerals for their products.
U.S. and Chinese officials have also been at odds over China’s purchases of American farm goods. China halted purchases of American soybeans this year as trade tensions with the United States flared. After the meeting in South Korea, the Trump administration said China had agreed to resume purchases of American soybeans. The Chinese government, however, never specifically confirmed the details of that agreement.
Brooke Rollins, the agriculture secretary, said on CNBC on Monday that China had bought about 1.5 million metric tons of soybeans since Oct. 1, a total that is far short of the 12 million metric tons that the Trump administration said the Chinese government has pledged to purchase by the end of the year.
“We’ve got a significant way to go,” Ms. Rollins said. “Every sign is that their commitment remains true.”
Ms. Rollins said that the terms of the deal with China still needed to be finalized. She also explained that the preliminary agreement did not demand that the soybeans be shipped by the end of the year, but that orders needed to be placed.
Amid the truce, the Trump administration has also been debating what kind of American A.I. technology to sell to China. Tech executives favor selling more advanced products to the country to try to keep Chinese companies from developing competing goods, but some Washington officials still see any effort to aid China’s A.I. industry as a national security threat.
In an interview on Bloomberg TV on Monday, Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, who is in charge of technology export licenses, said that Mr. Trump was listening to various advisers with different opinions on the topic, and that the decision about whether to sell the H200, a more advanced chip made by Nvidia, was “on his desk.”
“He is going to weigh those decisions,” Mr. Lutnick said of the president. “He understands President Xi the best. He will decide whether we go forward with that or not.”
Kevin Draper and Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting.
Nov. 24, 2025
:An earlier version of this article misstated the location of a summit last month between President Trump and President Xi Jinping of China. It was in Busan, South Korea, not Seoul.
Ana Swanson covers trade and international economics for The Times and is based in Washington. She has been a journalist for more than a decade.
Alan Rappeport is an economic policy reporter for The Times, based in Washington. He covers the Treasury Department and writes about taxes, trade and fiscal matters.
Edward Wong reports on global affairs, U.S. foreign policy and the State Department for The Times.