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.

There are those that say this is maybe the biggest summit ever.

They can never remember anything like it.

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. President Trump praising

Xi Jinping ahead of their bilateral talks last night in Beijing.

Will flattery get him what he wants out of the Chinese leader.

And what exactly are the goals?

We're going to talk about that.

Right now, you're looking at the live pictures, camera moving around of the president's guests that he's brought with him to Beijing

and getting together at the banquet that is about to begin.

We're going to be covering remarks as they come live and following every angle of this summit.

Welcome to Morning Joe. It's Thursday, May 14th. With us, we have President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haas,

former Treasury official and Morning Joe Economic analyst Steve Ratner is here,

columnist and associate editor of the Washington Post, David Ignatius, and co-host of The

Weekend and a Washington reporter for MS now, Jackie Alamani, is with us. And as I said, President Trump's two-day summit

with Chinese leader Xi Jinping is underway in Beijing. The two world leaders sat down for a high

stakes bilateral meeting overnight. Both presidents projected a positive relationship between

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