Chinese leader Xi Jinping concluded his first formal trip to Washington in 11 years on Friday, capping a highly anticipated state visit to President Donald Trump that included three days of gaiety and pageantry but few concrete agreements.

Trump greeted Xi with a rare welcome on the airport grounds, the two heads of state enjoyed a lavish state dinner and tea with their spouses and visited the National Archives. Between ceremonial elements, Trump and Xi signed an extension of an existing trade deal and Xi promised to send a pair of pandas to Atlanta.

What didn’t materialize were promises to buy or agreements to address the risks of artificial intelligence, the war in Iran, or taking steps to address other problematic global challenges.

A state visit with a lot of pomp, during which the circumstances hardly changed, could have been intentional.

“Going into the midterm elections, President Trump’s interest is to keep things quiet,” said Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who studies the Chinese economy. “We have interest rates that are at record highs and he doesn’t want to make the markets any more nervous.”

For those watching from a distance in China, the mood was optimistic.

“I think it’s a great success,” said Hai Zhao, director of international policy studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government-affiliated think tank. “The Chinese people are very pleased that President Xi is so well received in Washington, DC,” he said at the end of the Trump-Xi dinner.

Here’s what you should know about the historic visit:

The trade peace continues

U.S. President Donald Trump (R) gestures as he poses for photos with China’s President Xi Jinping during a visit to Zhongnanhai Garden in Beijing, May 15, 2026.

Evan Vucci | Afp | Getty Images

A concrete result came when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the US and China had agreed to continue their soon-to-expire trade truce until January 10, a two-month extension of the agreement signed last year.

Without giving a date, Xi referred to a “new joint agreement” on bilateral trade, according to Beijing’s readout of his meeting with Trump.

The truce, reached after Trump and Xi met in Busan, South Korea, cut U.S. tariffs and suspended Beijing’s controls on exports of rare earths and critical minerals, among other measures.

China experts told CNBC that a shorter extension could easily favor the US, which could use the prospect of renewed trade hostilities as leverage.

Many had expected a longer extension of six months. But the shorter time frame could give both sides negotiating room for future talks between Xi and Trump. They are expected to meet twice more this year: at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Shenzhen, China, in November and at the G20 Summit in Miami in December.

After those two events, “I think you have to be careful that things don’t stay as calm as they look now,” Kennedy said Friday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia.”

“As some have said, on the surface, like a polo match, it looks relatively calm, but underneath there are a lot of kicks and those kicks are becoming more visible as the new year begins,” he said.

Read more coverage of the Trump-Xi meeting

“Thucydides Trap” avoided?

China’s rhetoric has become significantly more assertive.

“The Thucydides Trap can be overcome,” Xi said upon his arrival at the White House, according to an official statement from the Chinese side.

That contrasts with his rhetorical question about whether the two countries could avoid the Thucydides trap when the two met in Beijing in May. The term refers to the fact that tensions between a rising power and a dominant power have often led to war in the past.

Xi said on Thursday that the two countries could have “healthy” competition without confrontation. “It should be a race to catch up with each other, not a struggle where you either win or lose,” he said.

Cui Shoujun, a professor at Renmin University of China’s School of International Studies, said in Chinese, translated by CNBC, that the summit’s “most significant political outcome” was to set an end result – intense competition without military conflict. “This has brought certainty to the volatile bilateral relationship.”

Trump’s comments on Xi’s arrival at the White House simply emphasized overall cooperation. The U.S. president has not yet commented on Taiwan at this summit, although Xi called on the U.S. to “oppose Taiwan’s ‘independence,’” according to Beijing’s statement of the two presidents’ talks on Thursday.

It was also noted in China that Trump and Xi discussed the situation in the Middle East without mentioning the Iran war.

However, Zhai Jun, China’s special envoy to the Middle East, said at an event in Singapore on Friday that “the situation in the Middle East was a big topic in the leaders’ discussion that just took place, and the consensus reached there will be crucial in cooling the conflict.”

AI questions remain

Neither side has signaled major steps to restrict AI. This is despite some leading technology companies and US lawmakers warning about the risks posed by the rapid advancement of AI models.

“I want to leave it right where it is,” Trump said of AI in a Truth Social post sent before Xi’s arrival at the White House. “That is also China’s position.”

Speaking later at the White House, Xi struck a different tone, saying the U.S. and China have “both the ability and the responsibility to develop and manage AI forever, and to ensure that the development of AI is always under human control and serves the well-being of people.”

The Chinese leader emphasized the need for both countries to cooperate in the field of AI.

Trump and Xi are both being “pulled in two directions” as they balance the goals of rapid AI growth with concerns about the technology spiraling out of control, Ho-Fung Hung, a China expert and professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, told CNBC.

But it was once again an issue where public announcements fell short of details amid a flurry of photo ops.

“There are a number of issues in this complex relationship that are not really being addressed in an institutionalized, system-wide way below the executive level,” Dewardric McNeal, senior policy analyst at Longview Global, said on CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime” Thursday afternoon.

Fanfare and flattery flow freely

Xi was expected to get red carpet treatment from Trump, and he got it — literally: A red carpet was rolled out to Xi’s plane on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews, and another appeared at the White House as his motorcade arrived at the south portico.

Trump and First Lady Melania Trump waited for Xi on the airport steps upon his arrival. It was Trump’s first trip to the base to greet a foreign leader.

That set the tone for a fanfare-filled summit replete with displays of synchronized military might by large numbers of military personnel who performed music, hoisted flags and rifles and marched in formation at various locations.

In the newly paved Rose Garden, Xi and Trump stood for a military display that included a rooftop performance by the U.S. Army’s Herald Trumpets and demonstrations by the Army’s Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps and the Marines’ Silent Drill Platoon and Drum and Bugle Corps.

Military personnel also conducted low-altitude flyovers on Wednesday and Thursday – the first of which came with a loud roar that drew a wincing grimace from Trump while Xi showed no reaction.

After a private bilateral meeting at midday Thursday, Trump gave Xi a tour of the newly constructed helipad in front of the White House. “He loves good granite,” Trump said of Xi as the leaders passed reporters on their way to the helipad where they toured the presidential helicopter.

It is not uncommon for a leader on a state visit to place great emphasis on hospitality and organize elaborate ceremonies, the highest form of diplomacy between leaders. But Trump’s treatment of Xi is still remarkable.

“Trump has pushed the pageantry further than most of his predecessors,” Ryan Hass, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution, told CNBC. “The part of the day devoted to substantive discussion is smaller than the time that both leaders will spend on ceremonial matters.”

Not seen on TV

The summit was littered with colorful, large-scale performances of military choreography – but major television networks did not show them.

The reason for this is the now-ended suspension of so-called TV pool coverage of the White House, implemented in solidarity with MS NOW, CNN and Politico, which Trump banned last week for their allegedly harmful reporting.

A federal judge ordered the White House to restore access to the three outlets for up to two weeks, while casting doubt on the administration’s claim that the ban was a matter of national security.

Despite the ruling, some journalists from all three media outlets were denied entry to the White House on Thursday morning – although Chinese state media were granted access. Access was fully restored later Thursday, the Trump administration said in a court filing.

In a Truth Social post Thursday afternoon, Trump railed against the networks for not broadcasting Xi’s arrival, complaining that the moment was “made for TV.”

—CNBC’s Anniek Bao contributed to this report.