The dispute between US President Donald Trump and media companies over access to the White House overshadowed the visit of China's head of state Xi Jinping in the United States. Major US broadcasters broadcast significantly less about the meeting in Washington in their linear TV programs on Thursday than is usual for such summits. Live broadcast was missing. At the start of his visit to the White House, Trump announced that issues in the context of security, technology and AI would be discussed.
The US President used the term “superintelligence” instead of AI, which he uses as a replacement. Trump said: "The decisions we make in these areas today can promote peace and prosperity for decades." The USA and China are in a global competition for first place in AI technology.
It remained unclear whether there would be live images of the high-level state dinner in the White House on Thursday evening (local time) on the TV program in the USA, at which tech bosses including Elon Musk were expected in addition to the Chinese delegation.
Trade dispute should be a big issue
The fierce trade dispute between the two largest economies should also be a big topic during Xi's visit. After Xi's landing, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News that both countries had agreed to extend their tariff break by two months.
“We agreed today to extend the so-called Busan Agreement,” said Bessent. However, hours later there was still no confirmation from the Chinese side of the deal.
In October, Trump and Xi agreed to suspend high additional tariffs in Busan, South Korea. As Bessent announced, the postponement of customs duties will now apply until January 10th instead of November 10th. “This gives us more time to examine what we can do on an economic level.” Xi will remain in Washington until this Friday.
That's why there are no live images
The state visit was just one of many other topics even on Trump's favorite channel Fox News, which likes to report favorably on the president and reports very extensively on Trump's appointments. Things were completely different months ago when Trump visited Beijing. Back then there was a lot of live broadcasting for American TV viewers.
The reason for this is the dispute between Trump and three media companies, which escalated days ago. Trump banned CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House - he accused them of spreading fake news. Critics see this as an attack on press freedom and an attempt at intimidation. As in Germany, freedom of the press in the USA is constitutionally guaranteed.
Trump escalated the dispute around six weeks before the important US general elections, in which the Republicans - Trump's party - want to defend their razor-thin majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate. The US President has had poor poll numbers for a long time.
In a protest action, the group of major TV channels (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News and the channel affected by the ban, CNN), which ensure close TV coverage of Trump's appointments and trips through a rotation principle and share the material with other media, stopped. Since then there has been no more so-called pool TV material.
On Thursday night, a judge ordered in an interim order that the three media outlets must be given immediate access to the White House again. However, problems arose again on Thursday morning. Reporters were not allowed through. The three houses later reported that journalists had re-entered the White House.
Since Xi's landing in the US on Wednesday evening, the White House had selectively - but not consistently - shown recordings of the joint appointments, including the speech by Trump and Xi in the White House on Thursday morning.
