Rubio, Wang Yi meet in Manila ahead of Trump-Xi summit
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- Marco Rubio will meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Manila this week on the sidelines of the 11-member ASEAN foreign ministers' gathering, a U.S. State Department official confirmed Tuesday.
- The Rubio-Wang meeting is expected to focus on preparations for a possible second summit between Trump and Xi Jinping, following their first meeting last May.
- Trump said Xi will visit the U.S. at the end of September, and Rubio told reporters departing for ASEAN he has "no reason to believe that they won't be coming" — though China has yet to confirm the trip.
- China and the U.S. have held a fragile truce since the October trade deal struck by Trump and Xi, though Rubio acknowledged: "There are always going to be things we don't agree on."
- Trump renewed accusations last week of Chinese meddling in U.S. elections — claims Beijing denies — and told reporters Tuesday the issue would be raised with no specifics on consequences.
- A 2021 U.S. intelligence community assessment found no indications that China or other foreign actors altered "any technical aspect" of the 2020 presidential election vote.
Why it matters: Rubio's meeting with Wang Yi is the primary diplomatic channel for managing the fragile October trade truce ahead of a potential end-of-September Xi visit to Washington. Trump's revived — and unsubstantiated — election-meddling accusations, contradicted by a 2021 U.S. intelligence assessment, inject an unpredictable variable into summit preparations.
