President Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping for a State Visit this week that produced few major agreements but came with a Georgia connection: Xi announced China will loan two pandas to Zoo Atlanta.
The visit was billed as a State Visit rather than a full negotiating summit, and U.S. officials say that was by design. “The old adage of deliverables in a relationship that we have with China is really not measurable in many ways,” said U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue, a former Georgia senator, who described the goal as “continuing the conversation.”
The most concrete progress cited by administration officials involves the trade deficit. The gap between U.S. exports and imports from China fell from $297 billion in 2024 to $202 billion in 2025, according to figures cited by U.S. officials. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the deficit is on track to drop to $140 billion in 2026, a level not seen in more than two decades.
Greer said the administration has pursued what it calls “managed” trade, focusing on agricultural products and medical devices rather than sensitive technology. “All those export controls that are national security issues, we take those off the table,” Greer told CNBC, adding that more trade details would be released next week.
Soybean purchases, however, remain behind schedule. American Soybean Association President Scott Metzger said China has bought only about half the amount of soybeans it had agreed to purchase.
Extended Truce, No Breakthrough on AI
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met for 12 hours on Sunday with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng. The talks resulted in a two-month extension of the 2025 trade truce rather than a new agreement. That truce followed a period last year when China halted licensing of rare earth exports and the U.S. responded with tariffs.
“I don’t know whether a bigger deal can be done. I don’t know whether we will just roll the current deal,” Bessent said Wednesday.
The Bessent-He meeting had also been expected to lay groundwork for an artificial intelligence safety agreement between Trump and Xi. No formal accord emerged, though Bessent said China was interested in continued engagement, including a possible hotline to address cross-border incidents.
Tech Leaders at the White House
Trump hosted technology executives at a White House State Dinner on Thursday, including leaders from Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Dell, OpenAI and Citigroup. Nvidia has been cleared to sell its H200 chips to China, though only limited purchases have been made so far by Tencent and ByteDance, as Beijing pursues a policy of semiconductor self-reliance under Xi.
Pandas and a Study Proposal
Xi announced China’s loan of two pandas to Zoo Atlanta, along with an initiative aimed at bringing 100,000 American students to study in China over the next five years. By comparison, fewer than 2,000 American students currently study in China, while 265,919 Chinese students are enrolled in the United States. Harvard alone enrolled 1,452 students from China last fall, most in graduate programs. Duke University maintains a joint venture campus in China.
Ambassador Perdue also said China has provided Iran with what he termed “intel and parts,” as U.S. officials continue to raise concerns about Chinese support for Russia’s oil purchases and defense electronics.
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