Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. and China agreed on the notion that the Strait of Hormuz should not be militarized as Iran seeks to control the key waterway amid the war.
Speaking to NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas, Rubio said "the Chinese side said they are not in favor of militarizing the Straits of Hormuz, and they're not in favor of a tolling system, and that's our position."
Rubio went on to address the impact of soaring oil prices in the global economy, saying the U.S. is not "immune" to it because "we do buy from the global market," but "other countries around the world are paying a much higher price." "They've got to get involved in this as well," he added, in reference to reopening the Strait of Hormuz. However, he said, the U.S. is "not asking for China's help" on the matter.
Taiwan appeared to dominate the meeting between Trump and Xi. The bilateral meeting at Beijing's Great Hall of the People lasted about two hours and 15 minutes, roughly 35 minutes longer than the leaders' previous summit in South Korea last year, according to NBC News.
There, Xi warned Trump that mishandling the Taiwan issue could place the U.S.-China relationship in "great jeopardy" and lead to "clashes and even conflicts," according to China's Foreign Ministry and reports from Reuters.
Taiwan's government said it saw "nothing surprising" in the summit discussions and remained in close communication with Washington. Taiwanese officials have been closely monitoring the talks amid concerns over U.S. arms sales discussions with Beijing.
Trade also remained central to the summit. Trump told Xi that future trade ties would be "totally reciprocal," while Xi argued that trade wars have "no winner," remarks reported by Reuters. Chinese officials also said both sides discussed expanding economic cooperation and maintaining momentum from the trade truce reached during the Busan summit in 2025.
The summit included a high-profile American business delegation featuring Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. The executives met Chinese Premier Li Qiang before joining summit events in Beijing.
The Beijing summit marked Trump's first visit to China since 2017 and the first by a sitting U.S. president in nearly a decade. The leaders later visited Beijing's Temple of Heaven before attending a formal state banquet.
Xi used the opening session to reference the "Thucydides Trap," a theory describing the risk of war between rising and established powers, and said the world stood at "a new crossroads," wondering whether the countries would be able to avoid such a scenario. Trump responded by praising Xi as a "great leader" and saying the two countries had a "fantastic relationship."
