By Amalya Dubrovsky
Publication Date: 2026-05-14 13:39:00
US stocks stepped higher on Thursday after President Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping began a high-stakes US-China summit, with relations on trade and AI in the balance.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) led gains, rising 0.8%, while the S&P 500 (^GSPC) picked up 0.3% following a record-setting day on Wall Street. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) climbed 0.2% as Nvidia’s stock rose amid signs of robust AI demand.
Trump and Xi called for better US-China ties on Thursday as they began a two-day summit likely to cover issues ranging from tariffs to AI.
Shares in Nvidia (NVDA) jumped over 2% on news that the US had approved sales of its H200 chips to several Chinese firms. That set the stage for Xi’s welcome to some of America’s top CEOs, including Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, Tesla’s (TSLA) Elon Musk, and Apple’s (AAPL) Tim Cook.
Xi reportedly told the business leaders their companies could be “deeply involved in China’s reform and opening up” and that “China’s door will only open wider.”
Also in focus are hopes that China can help break the Middle East standoff between its ally Iran and the US, as their war drives up oil prices and risks stoking inflation.
Higher prices likely helped drive a rise in US retail sales in April, shown in data released on Thursday, as the Iran war lifted fuel prices.
On the corporate front, Cisco (CSCO) shares soared after its quarterly earnings beat expectations, and the networking…
