China’s president, Xi Jinping, has warned of “clashes and even conflicts” with the US over Taiwan after meeting Donald Trump in Beijing.
Xi’s remarks, published by China’s foreign ministry after his two-hour meeting with Trump on Thursday morning, said Taiwan was “the most important issue in China-US relations”.
China is keen to put Taiwan at the top of an agenda that risks being overshadowed by the war on Iran and disagreements over trade. Beijing wants the US to reduce its levels of support for the self-governing island, which China claims as part of its territory. Xi has made “unification” with Taiwan a core priority for his legacy and has not ruled out the use of force to achieve that aim.
Trump later said Xi had pledged not to send weapons to Iran, despite recent reports that Chinese arms manufacturers had discussed deals to supply weapons to Tehran.
Trump said he and Xi had “known each other for a long time” and Xi was a “great leader”. Trump told Xi: “I say to everybody you’re a great leader. Sometimes people don’t like me saying it, but I say it anyway, because it’s true.”
Xi warns Trump of ‘clashes and even conflicts’ with US over Taiwan
The White House’s readout of the meeting said the two sides also discussed market access for US firms in China, and fentanyl controls, but these two issues were absent from the Chinese readout. The White House said the two countries had “agreed that the strait of Hormuz must remain open to support the free flow of energy” and that Xi had indicated China could buy more oil from the US to lessen dependence on Iran.
Trump’s decision to launch strikes against Iran in February, assassinating the leadership of a country with close ties to China and imperilling global energy supplies, has cast a shadow over talks that were supposed to be focused on reaching a trade deal between the world’s two biggest economies.
Salmon farm faces new cruelty claims as Trump seeks to supersize fish farming
The Trump administration is keen to do to fish what has been done to chickens – mass-produce them on an industrial scale to accelerate the US’s output of seafood.
But this “chickenification” of fish may come at a hefty cost to the environment and to the fish themselves, as a new undercover video at one of the country’s leading fish farms has highlighted.
US southern states rush to redraw electoral maps to dilute Black voting power
US southern states are rushing to redraw congressional maps to eliminate Democratic districts and dilute the influence of Black voters in electing candidates, a bare-knuckled blitz occurring even in some states where voting in congressional primaries has begun, and prompted by the US supreme court’s decision gutting section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Rand Paul’s son apologizes for antisemitic and anti-gay rant after accosting lawmaker
Republican senator Rand Paul’s son William apologized on Wednesday for a drunken tirade at a bar in Washington DC, in which he reportedly told a Republican congressman he “hates Jews and hates gays”.
“Last night, I had too much to drink and said some things that don’t represent who I really am. I’m sorry and today I am seeking help for my drinking problem,” William Paul posted on social media under the handle TastyBrew1776.
Miami residents sue over land for Trump presidential library
A group of Miami residents has filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump and the state of Florida over a land giveaway for his proposed presidential library.
Almost three acres of prime waterfront land that once belonged to Miami Dade College (MDC) was illegally gifted to the US president by Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, the lawsuit states.
US border patrol chief resigns abruptly amid string of exits by Trump immigration officials
Mike Banks, the border patrol chief who oversaw the most aggressive militarization of the US southern border in recent history, has resigned with immediate effect.
“It’s just time,” Banks told Fox News in an interview. “I feel like I got the ship back on course from the least secure, most disastrous, most chaotic border to the most secure border this country has ever seen.”
Supreme court allows abortion pill mifepristone to continue to be available by mail
The US supreme court upheld nationwide access to mail-order mifepristone, an abortion medication, in a shadow-docket decision on Thursday.
What else happened today:
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The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has said ships entering the strait of Hormuz must cooperate with the Iranian navy, as reports emerged of a ship being seized outside a United Arab Emirates port and taken towards Iranian waters.
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Missouri is the first state in more than a century where a state legislature is asking voters whether to eliminate the income tax, the Associated Press reports. But the move adds to other Republican-led states across the country that have also recently passed legislation to phase out income taxes.
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Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Nethanyahu, and foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, have threatened to sue the New York Times for defamation over the publication of an essay by Nicholas Kristof detailing allegations that Palestinian women, men and children have been raped and sexually abused in Israeli military detention.
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The supreme court justice Samuel Alito, who owns stock in oil companies, may be violating court ethics codes by participating in certain cases that could benefit big oil, government watchdog groups say.
Catching up? Here’s what happened on 13 May 2026.