President Donald Trump has admitted he caused his high-stakes meeting with China’s Xi Jinping to run overtime.
Trump, 79, met with Xi, 72, on Thursday for 2 hours and 15 minutes, according to White House press pool reports.
“It was a long meeting,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, which aired on Thursday evening.
“It started off interestingly because they are very organized people,” Trump said of the Chinese.
Trump then bragged he had “30 of the biggest business leaders in the world, biggest everything” as part of his entourage. That includes Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Apple CEO Tim Cook, who are in China to spruik doing business with their companies.
“I did not invite them, they all wanted to come,” Trump said. “I suggested that before we start the meeting, I would like to introduce them to you. And they were surprised because it wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t scheduled. And they looked around and they said ‘Er...’”
Trump said he did not want to name all of the business leaders “because I will leave some out,” but noted at the meeting, “They each spoke a bit and introduced themselves.”
He continued, “The Chinese leadership, because it was President Xi and many other leaders... they got used to the fact that we were a little off-schedule here and we’re talking about a subject that wasn’t even thought about.”
Trump claimed the Chinese president was happy with the unexpected introductions.
“He actually said, ‘That was very good, that was a good idea.’ But it was very different from what the schedule had.”
The White House press pool, citing the White House, listed 14 CEOs who were present at Thursday’s ceremony.
Musk, Cook, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang were spotted leaving the front of the Great Hall of the People after the meeting.
Musk said the meeting was “wonderful,” and that they had achieved “many good things.” Cook gave a peace sign, then the thumbs-up, while Huang said, “Meeting went well, Mr Xi and President Trump were incredible.”
Other CEOs present included representatives from Blackstone, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Mastercard, Boeing, Visa, Cargill and Micron Technology.
The combined net worth of the executives is almost $1 trillion, according to calculations by CBS News.
The Chinese president told the CEOs the country is open to further business deals with American companies that want to expand their foothold in the world’s second-largest economy.
The White House shared two photographs of the meeting, with the CEOs standing behind Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
It said the CEO’s joined for “a portion of the meeting.”
“The two sides discussed ways to enhance economic cooperation between countries, including expanding market access for American businesses into China and increasing Chinese investment,” the White House said.
