Watch Live: Trump meeting with Xi Jinping in Beijing today

President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to meet in Beijing on Thursday local time, a high-stakes summit as the two countries aim to stabilize their trading relationship and grapple with uncertainty over the United States' war with Iran. Mr. Trump and Xi shook hands outside Beijing's Great Hall of the People on Thursday morning, or late Wednesday night ET. It's the American and Chinese leaders' first face-to-face meeting since October , and the first visit to China by a U.S. president since Mr. Trump traveled to Beijing in 2017. Mr. Trump spoke about Xi in glowing terms in the lead-up to the summit, calling him an "amazing man" and a "great gentleman," and saying he would give Xi a "big, fat hug." In an interview that aired Wednesday evening, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News' Sean Hannity that China is both "our top … challenge, geopolitically" and "the most important relationship for us to manage," calling China a "big, powerful country." Just over a year ago, the U.S.-China relationship was far rockier. President Trump's hefty tariffs on China and dozens of other trading partners sparked a tit-for-tat trade war with Beijing, leading the two countries to briefly jack up tariffs on each other's goods to over 100% . China and the U.S. also squared off over rare earth elements , semiconductors , student visas , shipments of fentanyl precursor chemicals, Chinese soybean imports and other issues. …