China’s Xi shares a rare laugh on White House tour at Trump’s Biden autopen joke

Read the original at South China Morning Post ↗
South China Morning Post · collected 2026-09-25 · by Cao Jiaxuan

Quick Summary

During a tour of the White House, Chinese President Xi Jinping showed rare amusement when former U.S. President Donald Trump pointed out an image used instead of Joe Biden’s official portrait due to travel restrictions early in Biden's term. Trump quipped, "This is the autopen... it’s Biden," and Xi laughed audibly along with others present.
Written locally by qwen2.5:14b on 2026-09-25, using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the same event (that is the story summary below).

AI analysis runs on qwen2.5:14b, locally

Story summary

Before the Xi-Trump summit last week, analysts expected soybeans to be included in tariff-reduced arrangements between China and the U.S., but China excluded them from a tariff-reduction list released on September 28, 2026, despite cutting tariffs on other agricultural goods like corn, wheat, meat, and dairy. This decision disappointed American farmers, such as John Bartman, an Illinois-based soybean farmer who called it "a missed opportunity." U.S. soybeans still face an additional tariff of 10%, which traders say is too high for private crushers to absorb, even as Chinese state buyers have stepped up purchases. Despite this exclusion, both sides agreed to form a trade council to discuss reciprocal tariff cuts on $30 billion worth of products and stabilize economic ties.

Written for “US-China Tariff Cuts Deal” on 2026-10-05, grounded in this article and the 283 other(s) covering the same event.

Signals How these are calculated →

Claims extracted
3
claim-shaped sentences
Uncertain
0%
0 of 3 hedged
Leaning
not political
takes no side on a contested political question
Correction & hedging signals
66.6
corrections and hedging in what we collected; not a measure of accuracy
Outlets on this story
284
Economy/Business
Narrative spread
1
articles carrying this framing
Analyzed 2026-09-25 · how these are computed

Story

📰 US-China Tariff Cuts Deal
Economy/Business · 284 article(s) covering the same event. See how they differ ↓

How this is being covered How these are calculated →

Article leaning vs. publisher reliability
Source leaning vs. consistency

Compared with similar articles

This article reads unscored and hedges 0% of its claims. Each row says how that neighbour differs.
Daily Mail · 0.89 cosine similarity
⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 20% hedged 8 of 41 📰 publisher trust 65
“Both articles describe President Xi laughing at Trump's joke about the autopen portrait of Biden during the White House tour.”
BBC News
⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 6% hedged 2 of 36 📰 publisher trust 78
“Both articles describe President Xi Jinping's visit to Washington and interactions with US President Trump, specifically mentioning a White House tour and remarks about an autopen joke.”
Dawn
⚖️ Leans left 🔴 35% hedged 9 of 26 📰 publisher trust 77
“Both articles describe President Xi Jinping's visit to Washington and interactions with President Trump during a White House tour, including a specific joke about Biden's autopen.”
The Sydney Morning Herald
⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 3% hedged 1 of 34 📰 publisher trust 61
“Both articles describe President Trump showing Chinese leader Xi Jinping around the White House on the same day, specifically mentioning a humorous exchange about an autopen that replaced former president Biden's portrait.”
BBC News
⚖️ Leans left 🔴 13% hedged 4 of 30 📰 publisher trust 78
“Both articles describe President Xi's visit to Washington and specifically mention interactions during his meeting with Trump at the White House, including a shared moment of laughter over Trump's joke about Biden's autopen.”
CBS News
⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 0% hedged 0 of 2 📰 publisher trust 66
“Both articles describe President Trump hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House on the same day, with Article B providing more detail about a specific interaction during the visit.”
Al Jazeera
⚖️ Leans right 🔴 0% hedged 0 of 13 📰 publisher trust 60
“Both articles describe the interactions between Trump and Xi Jinping during a state dinner and tour at the White House on the same day.”
NBC News
⚖️ Leans right 🔴 15% hedged 10 of 65 📰 publisher trust 95
“Both articles describe the interaction between Trump and Xi Jinping during their White House summit meeting on September 24, 2026.”
South China Morning Post
⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 0% hedged 0 of 4 📰 publisher trust 67
“Both articles describe a single specific interaction between Xi and Trump during the White House tour on September 24, 2026.”
Euronews
⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 0% hedged 0 of 4 📰 publisher trust 60
“The articles describe different moments during President Xi's visit to the White House, with Article A focusing on a humorous exchange about Biden's autopen and Article B detailing the state dinner.”

Publisher

South China Morning Post · 1627 article(s) · 4 correction(s) detected
Running correction rate · 4 correction(s)
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Who wrote this

Cao Jiaxuan
13 article(s) here · 0 carrying a prediction
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🔮 The new US-Denmark-Greenland security agreement could narrow China’s room to engage in the Arctic – particularly in resource-rich Greenland – and potentially push Beijing closer to Russia, Chinese experts on the matter said.
🔮 Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia test limits of Mecca regional security pact Turkey and Pakistan are unlikely to intervene despite the deal’s terms, which could hobble its deterrent effect, analysts say Just a month after Saudi Arabia signed a regional mutual defence deal with Pakistan and Turkey, attacks by Yemen’s Houthis against the kingdom’s energy infrastructure and military sites are testing the pact’s limits.
🔮 How Peng Liyuan and Melania Trump opened a parallel track in US-China diplomacy First ladies’ cultural outings and apparently warm conversations a ‘clear signal’ on willingness to advance understanding, analyst says The pair charted a parallel path of soft power diplomacy – sharing conversations, cultural outings and moments of apparent warmth during a visit otherwise shadowed by trade tensions, and artificial intelligence and other strategic issues.
🔮 BreakingChinese President Xi Jinping will pay state visit to US this week, Beijing confirms Rare airport welcome by Donald Trump will precede talks on trade, tech and other areas of friction during second in-person summit of 2026 3-MIN READ3-MIN Listen
🔮 Citing Section 53 of Germany’s Residence Act, the letter said that for applications involving “study, research and similar employment”, particular attention had to be paid to the possibility that knowledge acquired in Germany could be misused in ways that harmed protected legal interests or other significant German interests.
🔮 Advertisement Brics leaders act to hedge – not revolt – against US dollar dominance As New Delhi summit closes, the bloc pushes for a louder voice within global institutions while building parallel machinery, analysts say 4-MIN READ4-MIN Listen The family photograph did the political work the summit’s final declaration could not. Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi stood shoulder to shoulder as the Brics summit closed in New Delhi on Sunday – a single frame capturing an 11-nation bloc that now spans four continents and nearly half the world’s population. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres attended the gathering of emerging economies alongside World Trade Organization Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, New Development Bank president Dilma Rousseff and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank president Zou Jiayi. Select Voice Select Speed 1x AI-generated voice
🔮 Europe’s concerns are reflected in an updated EU Arctic policy that is expected to be issued later this year.
🔮 According to the agent, who declined to be named because they were not authorised to speak to the media, multiple clients scheduled for interviews later this week were notified via email that their appointments had been cancelled and would be rescheduled at a later date.
Also by Cao Jiaxuan
Nothing else under this byline is closely related to this article, so these are simply their most recent.
All 13 articles by Cao Jiaxuan →

Topics

China Chinese White House

Subjects

Biden PERSON · 2× Trump PERSON · 2× China GPE · 1× Chinese NORP · 1× White House ORG · 1×

Narrative

China’s Xi shares a rare laugh on White House tour at Trump’s Biden autopen joke The Chinese leader responds audibly to his host’s remarks at the image in place of the former president’s portrait in ‘walk of fame’
framing: assertive · carried by 1 article(s) · first seen 2026-09-25
2026-09-25 · South China Morning Post
China’s Xi shares a rare laugh on White House tour at Trump’s Biden autopen joke · assertive framing

Claims (3 extracted, 0 hedged)

China’s Xi shares a rare laugh on White House tour at Trump’s Biden autopen joke The Chinese leader responds audibly to his host’s remarks at the image in place of the former president’s portrait in ‘walk of fame’ asserted
leader → share → fame
“This is the autopen ... it’s Biden,” Trump said, pointing to the image. asserted
Trump → ’ → image
Xi laughed audibly, while several people accompanying the two leaders also appeared to join in. asserted
people → laugh → leaders
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