Trump says he has ‘outstanding’ relationship with Chinese leader

President Trump said Friday he has developed an “outstanding” relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping after meeting with the leader of a nation Trump has criticized as a menace to the United States.

The widely anticipated meeting of the leaders of the world’s two largest economies was largely overshadowed by the U.S. missile strikes at Syria.

Trump said in a brief appearance before reporters that he and Xi made “tremendous progress” in their first face-to-face talks and that he believe “lots of very potentially bad problems will be going away.”

[...] the two days of talks at Trump’s private estate in Florida were expected to focus on what Trump has described as China’s unfair trade practices and inadequate efforts to halt North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile program.

The strikes were retaliation against Syrian President Bashar Assad for a chemical weapons attack against civilians caught up in his country’s long civil war.

Taking action against North Korea has been a sticking point in U.S. talks with the Chinese.

Chinese state media reported late Thursday that Trump has accepted Xi’s invitation to visit China this year.