President Donald Trump’s meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping got off to an awkward start as the president looked lost trying to walk off the stage after the two leaders were introduced.
Before sitting down together to try to hash out their trade differences during the summit in South Korea, Trump and Xi greeted one another outside the meeting room and shook hands in front of the U.S. and Chinese flags.
The diplomatic tour has fueled concerns about the 79-year-old’s health as he has made random missteps and off-script rambles.
After about a minute of small talk and posing for the cameras, Trump gestured to Xi to their left and said, “Let’s go.”
He then looked to someone offstage and asked, “Which way?” before nodding, turning, and walking off to the right instead.
The confusion came after Trump had insisted that he and Xi would have a “very successful meeting” despite the Chinese leader being “a very tough negotiator.”
“That’s not good,” he joked, as Xi failed to react. “We know each other well,” Trump added.
For Trump supporters, the moment was similar to Joe Biden at a Normandy D-Day commemoration last year.
MAGA and Conservative voices slammed him for walking off stage and struggling to sit down. An awkward clip was circulated on social media, including one message from the assassinated Charlie Kirk.
It was the first time Trump and Xi had met since 2019, when they spoke on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan.
They’ve held three phone calls and exchanged several letters since Trump retook office, Xi recounted at the beginning of the meeting, which lasted about an hour and 40 minutes, according to NBC News.
The Chinese president also harped on a familiar theme, praising Trump for his efforts to broker ceasefire agreements in Asia and the Middle East.
“You care a lot about world peace, and you’re very enthusiastic about settling various regional hot spot issues,” he told Trump.
The rest of the meeting was closed to the press. Afterward, the two leaders left in their respective motorcades. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump described the meeting as “amazing” and gave it a rating of “12 on a scale of zero to 10.”
He stopped short, however, of announcing a trade deal between the world’s two largest economies. For months, the two nations have been fighting over Trump’s tariffs, China’s purchase of U.S. farm products, and access to rare-earth minerals and high-powered AI chips.
The U.S. delegation—which included Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick—seemed relieved by how the meeting went, according to NBC.
There were smiles as the members followed Trump out of the room, and Lutnik offered reporters a thumbs-up.
The president broke precedent this week by abandoning Washington for a pomp-filled trip to Asia, instead of remaining in the U.S. to help negotiate a bipartisan spending bill and end the nearly month-long government shutdown.
Thursday’s meeting with Xi was his last stop on a five-day trip to Malaysia, Japan, and South Korea.
Earlier in the week, the aging president admitted that he found an elementary school-level cognitive test that screens for early signs of decline “very hard.”
For months, the president has faced questions about his physical and mental health. He’s been nursing swollen ankles and heavy bruising on his hands, and experts have warned that his nonsensical speeches and mental lapses are “clinical signs of dementia.”
