Trump Jokes About China Bilateral: ‘Never Seen Men So Scared’

The U.S. president met with China’s Xi in South Korea on Oct. 30, after which the countries struck a truce where each rolled back various trade measures.

President Donald Trump speaks during a breakfast meeting with Senate Republicans in the State Dining Room of the White House on Nov. 5, 2025, in Washington. Saul Loeb / AFP

U.S. President Donald Trump joked at a breakfast on Nov. 5 about his meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping, imitating the postures of the Chinese officials at the bilateral and their stiff responses.

“He’s got six people on each side, and every one of those people were standing like this: they were at attention. And I made a comment to one of them, I got no response. I said, ‘Are you going to answer me?’ I got no response, and President Xi didn’t let him have any,” Trump said.

“I said, I want my cabinet to behave like that,” Trump said, drawing laughter. “I want them sitting up like, just nice and straight. I’ve never seen posture like that. I’ve never seen men so scared in their lives.”

“They have an equivalent of a vice president,” Trump said, affecting a deep voice as he mimicked the official saying “I will answer all questions,” after Trump got no response from the first one. “JD doesn’t behave like that—JD budges into conversations! I want that for at least a couple days.”

Trump met with Xi in South Korea on Oct. 30, after which the countries struck an expected truce where each rolled back various trade measures. The White House released images of the meeting afterward, including one of Xi laughing at something Trump was showing him that was not shown in the photograph, leading to speculation and memes.

Post-meeting, triple digit tariffs imposed by both sides earlier in the year are still not expected to go into effect, and Beijing’s recent rare earths restrictions will be paused for at least a year. And both sides have paused the recent port fees they raised against each other for a year.

In addition, Beijing has agreed to curb fentanyl precursor exports, and the United States will halve fentanyl related tariffs to 10 percent in exchange.

China also agreed to remove the 15 percent tariffs on U.S. agricultural products, which was meant to see the resumption of soybean purchases. On Nov. 5, Chinese tariffs on U.S. soybeans remained high at 13 percent.

Several sensitive issues relating to U.S.-China relations were not brought up. They included Taiwan, which Xi has said he wants to capture by force if necessary, previously ordering the Chinese military to achieve combat readiness to do so by 2027.

They also did not bring up Nvidia, but did discuss semiconductor technology, and the United States agreed to pause an expansion of chips export controls while Beijing agreed to pause investigations into U.S. chip companies.