President Donald Trump heaped praise on Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday, telling him at their first official meeting of the U.S. China summit, “It’s an honor to be your friend.”

Trump traveled to China on Wednesday to meet with Jinping, greeting the Chinese leader at an extravagant welcome ceremony outside the Great Hall of the People. Xi opened the meeting between the two presidents by expressing his desire to find and discuss ways for their countries to work together.

He then gave the floor to Trump, who first shared his admiration for the welcome ceremony. He then lauded Xi as a “great leader,” touting the “long relationship” the two shared and noting the many U.S. business leaders who joined the trip to “pay respects” to Xi.

“You and I have known each other now for a long time,” he said. “In fact, the longest relationship of our two countries that any president and president has had, and that’s, to me, an honor.”

He continued:

We’ve had a fantastic relationship. We’ve gotten along. When there were difficulties, we worked it out. I would call you, and you would call me. And whenever we had a problem, people don’t know, whenever we had a problem, we worked it out very quickly. And we’re going to have a fantastic future together. Such respect for China, the job you’ve done.

You’re a great leader. I say it to everybody. You’re a great leader. Sometimes people don’t like me saying it, but I say it anyway because it’s true. I only say the truth. And I just want to say, on behalf of all of the great delegation that we have, we have the greatest businessmen, the biggest, and I guess the best in the world. We have amazing people, and they’re all with me. They, every single one of them– we asked the top thirty in the world, every single one of them said yes.

And I didn’t want the second or the third in the company. I wanted only the top. And they’re here today to pay respects to you and to China. And they look forward to trade and doing business. And it’s going to be totally reciprocal on our behalf.

So I really look very much forward to our discussion. It’s a big discussion. There are those that say this is maybe the biggest summit ever. They can never remember anything like it. It’s, I can say in the United States, it’s– people aren’t talking about anything else. But it’s an honor to be with you. It’s an honor to be your friend. And the relationship between China and the USA is going to be better than ever before. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Watch above via CNN.

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