Trump greets Xi Jinping at airport in rare personal welcome ahead of US-China summit on sidelines of UN general assembly – live

Trump greets Xi at airport in rare personal welcome to US

Xi Jinping has arrived in Washington and been greeted by Donald Trump at the airport instead of waiting for him to drive to the White House.

The decision to greet the Chinese leader there has been reported as showing how far Trump is going to honour China’s leader as he makes his first state visit to the US capital in more than a decade.

Trump and First Lady Melania Trump greeted Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan after the Chinese president descended from his plane at Joint Base Andrews, a military airfield outside Washington, for the start of a three-day state visit.

Donald Trump welcomes Xi Jinping on arrival at Joint Base Andrews, with Melania Trump next left and Peng Liyuan at right. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Key events

A selection of pictures from the cordial greeting given to Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan from Donald and Melania Trump at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.

US and China agree to extend trade war truce, says Bessent

The US treasury secretary is saying the ⁠US ⁠and ​China have agreed to extend “the Busan ⁠agreement”.

Scott ⁠Bessent’s comments to Fox News ⁠came after he met ​Chinese ‌vice-premier He Lifeng before Xi Jinping’s state visit to Washington this week.

“We met today to see if ‌we could do a bigger deal as ​opposed to just a series of smaller things. We have agreed ⁠today that we will extend ​what we ​call the ​Busan agreement,” Bessent ​was quoted as saying on Wednesday. The extension would go until 10 January.

The Busan agreement refers to the trade war truce Trump and Xi agreed to in Busan, South Korea, last October.

Trump greets Xi at airport in rare personal welcome to US

Xi Jinping has arrived in Washington and been greeted by Donald Trump at the airport instead of waiting for him to drive to the White House.

The decision to greet the Chinese leader there has been reported as showing how far Trump is going to honour China’s leader as he makes his first state visit to the US capital in more than a decade.

Trump and First Lady Melania Trump greeted Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan after the Chinese president descended from his plane at Joint Base Andrews, a military airfield outside Washington, for the start of a three-day state visit.

The day so far

Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, turned the tables on Donald Trump, describing the US as the true bully and terrorist in the Middle East while insisting that Iran had always shown a commitment to the negotiating table. In a defiant speech to the UN general assembly in New York, his first since the US and Israel launched an all-out war on Iran, Pezeshkian repeatedly vowed that Tehran would never bend the knee to the US. But he balanced defiance with a willingness to talk, saying: “It must be understood by President Trump and those who seek to bully us that we are ready for dialogue and diplomacy and negotiations but without the language of force.” Here’s Patrick Wintour’s report.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Moscow that Ukraine would strike back and make the coming winter deeply painful for Russia, if the two sides ⁠cannot agree a truce on energy ⁠attacks before the cold sets ​in. “Ukrainians understand that this winter could be very harsh for us. But in response, we will have no choice but to make it painful for Russia too,” Zelenskyy told member nations, as he urged leaders to keep choking Russia’s revenues and impede its war efforts.

Zelenskyy also used his address to single out Putin’s role in driving the war, repeatedly describing him derisively as “patient zero” and “the one from whom ​this idea of war keeps spreading further”. He said: “That is why ’patient ​zero’ must be stopped. He must be denied the space ​to act – and the space to spread this evil further.” Ukraine did not choose this war, he reiterated, stressing that partial victory (in Donetsk) would never be enough for Putin.

Polish president Karol Nawrocki warned that without accountability, international law is not more than “a declaration without any real power”. “Russia is destablising the situation in Europe through open aggression, hybrid operations, acts of subversion and sabotage, and by ignoring successive resolutions of this assembly,” he said, adding: “If aggression is not met with an adequate response, it becomes an invitation to repeat it.”

Javier Milei condemned the UN as he warned that Argentina would take “matters into our own hands” in its dispute with Britain over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands. In a caustic speech, the Argentinian president criticised the UN for being ineffective when it came to the long-running tensions over the British overseas territory in the south Atlantic known in Argentina as the Malvinas. “An organisation that set out to defend the territorial sovereignty of its members decided to look the other way regarding the situation of the Falkland Islands,” Milei said of the UN, adding that Argentina was willing to act unilaterally over recent oil exploration near the territory.

Milei told the assembly that Argentina would “not remain indifferent to those who exploit resources under illegal foreign occupation”. “Argentina is not going to sit around waiting for the UN and the international community to live up to their own mandate,” he said. “We’re going to take matters into our own hands.” Here’s Daniel Boffey’s report.

Syria’s interim president harshly criticized Israel’s occupation of southern Syria and said the Golan Heights is an inseparable part of his country. In a speech to the UN General Assembly, Ahmad al-Sharaa said that Israel has carried out more than 500 air and artillery strikes on the country since he took power nearly two years ago. Israel has also carried out 1,200 land incursions and detained nearly 300 people, he said.

The United States has invited Russian president Vladimir Putin to attend the G20 summit of world leaders being held in Miami in December, US secretary of state Marco Rubio said. “In order to solve problems, you have to meet with the people that you disagree with or the people that you might have some issues with, so we’ve invited president Putin to the G20.

Kenyan president William Ruto argued for the necessity of reforming the UN security council and for greater African representation.

“On the greatest questions of war and peace, five nations possess a power that the other 188 do not,” Ruto said.

Demanding a permanent seat on the council for Africa, he added: “We cannot manage transformation with institutions that refuse to transform themselves.”

Namibian president Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah joined growing calls for a woman to be elected as the next United Nations secretary-general.

Addressing member nations, Nandi-Ndaitwah noted that no woman has held the position since the organisation was established in 1945, and said the UN’s leadership should reflect the gender equality it promotes across the international system.

“Namibia therefore, believes that it is time that a woman is elected as secretary-general of our Organisation,” she said.

Panama calls for region to have permanent seat on UN security council

Earlier, Panama’s president, José Raúl Mulino, also called for for the Latin America and Caribbean region to have a permanent seat on the UN security council.

I wish to reiterate before this general assembly the need for Latin America and the Caribbean to hold positions with greater decision-making power on the security council, specifically a permanent position, as a permanent member of this organization’s security council.

We are a leading region in food, minerals, biodiversity, and [have] a deep commitment to peace and integration.

He urged the UN to address urgent issues including migration and the climate crisis, adding:

We must acknowledge that citizens do not believe these kinds of gatherings benefit them. Herein lies one of the reasons why trust must be restored.

Our conclusion is unequivocal: the world does not need less United Nations; it needs a United Nations that works better.

'We are not the ones seeking confrontation,' says Polish president in face of Russian aggression

Polish president Karol Nawrocki spoke of the grave importance of accountability if there is to be lasting peace and “if international law is to be anything other than a declaration without any real power”.

The absence of accountability in the international community has “sent a signal [to aggressive states] that violations of international law, aggression, and imperialist policies could go unpunished,” he told member nations.

It is precisely this lack of justice - this sort of original sin of the postwar order - that creates space for the return of old aggressive ambitions and methods of operation.

He went on: “Russia is destablising the situation in Europe through open aggression, hybrid operations, acts of subversion and sabotage, and by ignoring successive resolutions of this assembly.”

Contempt for international law must not become the norm.

As a country that neighbours Russia, he said he wanted to make it clear on behalf of Poland that “we are not the ones seeking confrontation”.

We are strengthening our alliances, developing our military, and modernizing its equipment not to wage war, but to prevent it … Our goal is deterrence and defence.

Nato remains the “guarantor of transatlantic security”, he said.

“Russia is carrying out actions aimed at undermining the foundations of international stability,” Nawrocki went on.

If aggression is not met with an adequate response, it becomes an invitation to repeat it.

Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev ⁠is heading to the United States on ⁠Wednesday, where ⁠he ​will meet with Trump administration representatives Steve Witkoff, ⁠Jared Kushner and others, two sources familiar with ⁠preparations for the talks ​have told Reuters.

The ‌sources said ‌that Dmitriev’s visit to ‌the US, which was agreed upon with Vladimir Putin, will take place in New York on ‌the sidelines of the UN general ​assembly and will follow up on a meeting between Putin ⁠and US representatives at the ​Kremlin earlier ​this month.

One ​source told Reuters that ​the ‌aim of ​the ​visit is to keep the Russia-US dialogue and the peace-making effort going.

President of Panama José Raúl Mulino is now up. He kicks off by applauding multiculturalism and the role of the UN in a world of “such volatility”, but calls for greater leadership.

“We must restore trust,” he says, warning that illegal people trafficking was taking a heavy toll on the country socially and economically, but also on some sensitive natural environments in Panama.

“We must make headway together on the key issues,” he says. This includes world trade, with Panama’s canal playing a key global role, but he warns it is increasingly at risk from heavy rain and flooding which is worsening due to the climate crisis, despite Panama being a carbon negative country.

President of the Central African Republic, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, is now on the podium, speaking about the country’s ongoing sectarian conflict and political instability.

“A fragile country needs security for development,” he says, calling for international support. “Peace cannot be decreed, it must be built day after day through dialogue, justice and shared development.”

“Holding out your hand to yesterday’s opponent is not a sign of weakness”, he says.

He also warns about the worsening impacts due to the global climate crisis and calls for a greater role for women in public life to help end instability in the country.