China's Xi urges trade cooperation in first meeting with Trump

Chinese President Xi Jinping urged cooperation with the United States on trade and investment on April 6, inviting U.S. President Donald Trump to visit China in a cordial start to their first meeting likely to broach sensitive security and commercial issues.

Trump has said he wants to raise concerns about China's trade practices and press Xi to do more to rein in North Korea's nuclear ambitions during his two-day visit to the Spanish-style Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, though no major deals on either issue were expected.

The two sides should promote the "healthy development of bilateral trade and investment" and advance talks on a bilateral investment agreement, Xi said, according to a statement on China's Foreign Ministry website.

"We have a thousand reasons to get China-U.S. relations right, and not one reason to spoil the China-U.S. relationship," Xi told Trump.

Trump accepted Xi's invitation to China later this year, state news agency Xinhua news agency cited officials as saying on April 7.

Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, joined Trump and his wife, Melania, at a long table in an ornate candle-lit private dining room festooned with red and yellow floral centerpieces, where they dined on pan-seared Dover sole and New York strip steak. 

Trump, a New York real estate magnate before he ran for office, joked before dinner: "We've had a long discussion already, and so far I have gotten nothing, absolutely nothing. But we have developed a friendship - I can see that - and I think long term we are going to have a very, very great relationship and I look very much forward to it."

The fanfare over the summit on April 6 was overshadowed by another pressing foreign policy issue: the U.S. response to a...