Singapore

Singapour, 25 September 2026. From the city-state's perspective, the Trump-Xi summit in Washington is largely a diplomatic show. On the second day of Xi Jinping's first state visit to the United States in over a decade, Donald Trump touted their "very great friendship" and claimed that the two countries had "never gotten along better," after less than two hours of closed-door talks on Thursday, 24 September 2026. The Singaporean press, via the Straits Times, sums up the outcome in a telling headline: "pandas are cute, but the US needs rare earth magnets." The assessment: no progress was announced on trade, Taiwan, rare earths, artificial intelligence, or Iran. The only concrete announcement was the extension of the trade truce, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirming that they had agreed to extend until 10 January an agreement that had put a commercial war on hold. The state dinner brought together over 130 guests, including Tim Cook, Jensen Huang, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, and Lisa Su, alongside Chinese officials such as Wang Yi and He Lifeng. Trump presented Xi with an eagle statue; Xi announced the upcoming dispatch of two pandas, Ping Ping and Fu Shuang, to the Atlanta zoo. Analysts cited by the Straits Times describe the exercise as "diplotainment," emphasizing that underlying tensions remain intact. Another article in the pool notes that the streets of Washington remain almost devoid of Chinese signs, and Xi was not accompanied by a business delegation, unlike Trump's visit to Beijing in May. In the United States, the political reading is more bitter: Democratic senators denounced a summit prioritizing pomp, demanding the delivery of the $15 billion in security aid promised to Taiwan. The coverage itself was disrupted: major American networks suspended their live broadcasts since 21 September, in protest against the accreditation denial to CNN, MS NOW, and Politico. Channel News Asia, more factual, situates the stake in the long term: a comprehensive agreement is still deemed unlikely, with attention focusing on the ability of both sides to transform their promise of constructive strategic stability into concrete measures. Further meetings are mentioned at APEC and the G20 — the true measure of the summit, for Singapour, will therefore take place later.