The toast was with a Schramsberg Blanc de Noirs, a Californian sparkling wine loaded with diplomatic memory. It was not an innocent choice. It was the same wine that was uncorked in Beijing in 1972 during the so-called "Toast of Peace", when Richard Nixon and Zhou Enlai sealed one of the most audacious geopolitical maneuvers of the 20th century: the thaw between the United States and communist China. That cup opened a crack in the Cold War, allowed Washington to balance Moscow and offered Beijing a gateway to the world that would end up transforming an impoverished country into the second power on the planet. Half a century later, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping raised their glasses again in Washington, but this time the symbol spoke less of openness than of an uncomfortable coexistence: two giants who can no longer be separated, although they tolerate each other worse and worse.
In his speech at the state dinner, Trump wanted to present the summit as a meeting between two opposing models condemned to understand each other. He admitted that he and Xi represent different political systems, but stressed that "the ties between our peoples endure" and assured that both countries had "never" gotten along better. "Together we can continue to build a relationship that promotes prosperity and security for future generations," he added, in an attempt to wrap the strategic rivalry between Washington and Beijing in the friendly language of cooperation.
As a symbolic gesture, Trump presented Xi Jinping with a sculpture of a bald eagle, the national emblem of the United States. As he explained, the piece had been created by an American artist and designed by Melania Trump and himself. The bird, he said, represents "the free and bold spirit of America." He later expressed his hope that the sculpture would find a home in Beijing, a patriotic offering wrapped in diplomatic courtesy.
The White House dressed the night with a set designed to please the Chinese guest. The room appeared bathed in red, the color of fortune and power in China: red tablecloths, flowers in abundance, dahlias and ranunculus arranged as if diplomacy could also be arranged by layers of petals. Xi arrived wearing a black Zhongshan suit, the closed, stiff-collared jacket known in the West as a "Mao suit," a garment that refers to revolutionary austerity and a severe idea of national authority. At his side, first lady Peng Liyuan wore a long red robe, a chromatic extension of an evening in which every detail was designed to project deference.
The menu closed with creamy vanilla ice cream, sour cherry preserves on walnut frangipane, and an ice cream made with honey harvested at the White House. But the guest list said as much as the letter. At the tables were Elon Musk, from SpaceX; Jensen Huang, from Nvidia; Sam Altman, of OpenAI; Tim Cook, of Apple; Sundar Pichai, from Google; Satya Nadella, from Microsoft; Jamie Dimon, of JPMorgan Chase; Jane Fraser, Citigroup; James Taiclet, of Lockheed Martin, and Albert Bourla, of Pfizer. The American business elite went to dinner with the leader of the country that Washington defines as both a systemic rival, an essential market, a critical factory and a technological threat.
Trump entertained Xi throughout the day with all the pomp available. There was a formal welcome ceremony, hymns, almost half a thousand soldiers on the South Lawn and a flyover by a B-2 Spirit bomber escorted by four F-22 Raptors. The visual message was twofold: respect for the guest and display of muscle. Trump spoke of peace, prosperity and decisions capable of marking "decades and decades." Xi responded with his preferred formula for large meetings: he asked to steer "the great ship" of the bilateral relationship on a stable course, invoked friendship between peoples and adapted his host's slogan to the Chinese story. The "great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation" and "making America great again," he said, could go hand in hand.
The visit, however, left more liturgy than concrete progress. Washington achieved an extension of the trade truce, but it was limited. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent explained that both parties agreed to extend the understanding that had stopped the tariff war for two months and expired in November. The formula gives oxygen, not a solution.
Beijing spoke of a "new joint agreement" on trade and presented it as good news for companies, citizens and the global economy, but without offering too many details. Trump hinted at progress on a mechanism to equivalently reduce tariffs on non-strategic products. In practice, the summit served to postpone another crisis and keep channels open in a year in which both leaders could meet again at the APEC meetings in Shenzhen and the G-20 in Miami.
Taiwan once again occupied the place it always occupies in these meetings: the invisible center of the table. According to Chinese state media, Xi asked Trump to handle the Taiwanese issue "prudently" and for the US to oppose the island's independence. The writing is not minor. Washington has maintained for decades that it does not support Taiwan independence, a carefully ambiguous formula that preserves the status quo without granting Beijing the phrase it wants. "Opposing" independence would be a stronger step, and for now, there are no signs that the Trump Administration will officially modify that language.
The Chinese president also rescued the "Thucydides trap", the thesis according to which the rivalry between an emerging power and an established one tends to lead to war. Xi assured that this fate can be avoided, but its mere mention recalled the shadow that hangs over the bilateral relationship: the risk that a crisis in Taiwan, the South China Sea or the technological space could lead to a military clash between the two largest powers in the world. That is why he called for regular dialogue between armies and crisis prevention mechanisms.
Artificial intelligence offered another contrast. Trump has defended that AI should be called "superintelligence" and has been in favor of not imposing new restrictions, trusting in the supervision of the Department of Justice. He even stated that China shared that vision. Xi, on the other hand, used more regulatory language. As leading powers in AI, he said, China and the US have "the capacity and responsibility" to develop and manage that technology for the common good, keeping it "always under human control." Beijing is trying to present itself as a guarantor of international AI governance while building one of the most sophisticated algorithmic control systems on the planet.
The editorial published this Friday by Global Times, a nationalist organ of the Chinese media ecosystem, condensed the reading that Beijing wants to project. The visit, the newspaper defended, provides "confidence" to build a strategic and constructive relationship based on stability. The text insisted that China and the US must be "partners, not rivals"; that competition must be kept "within reasonable limits"; and that without cooperation between both powers it will be difficult to solve problems such as economic recovery, regional conflicts, AI governance, cyberspace or outer space.
The international press was much less solemn. The diagnosis shared by many analyzes was that the summit lowered the temperature without altering the structure of the conflict. Trump achieved the image of a statesman capable of receiving the Chinese leader in Washington among military honors and technology businessmen. Xi obtained something perhaps more valuable for Beijing: a scene of equality in the American capital, the photograph of a de facto G-2 in which China no longer appears as a candidate, but as an inevitable interlocutor.
But the underlying issues remain intact: tariffs, chip export controls, military pressure on Taiwan, technological warfare and strategic distrust.
The detail of the Schramsberg thus contained an irony. In 1972, Nixon and Zhou toasted an opening that changed the world. In 2026, Trump and Xi toasted to prevent that world from ending up split in two. So, the US needed China to balance the Soviet Union and China needed the US to get out of isolation. Now, the two are needed so that the global economy is not derailed, but they are seen as adversaries destined to measure themselves in every chip, every port, every submarine cable and every algorithm.
