On Friday, February 13th, during the Munich Security Conference, US Secretary of State Pompeo held a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi for about an hour. This meeting comes as the United States and China prepare for President Trump’s potential visit to China in April.
This is at least the second face-to-face meeting between Pompeo and Wang Yi since Pompeo took office as the US Secretary of State. The last meeting was held in Malaysia in July last year. In addition to face-to-face meetings, the two have also had multiple phone conversations.
According to reports by Reuters, Pompeo and Wang Yi shook hands and posed for photos before their meeting on Friday. Subsequently, the delegations of both sides, accompanied by their respective senior aides, sat face to face in a meeting room at a hotel in the center of Munich. They did not make any statements and did not take questions from the media.
According to a senior US official, the meeting lasted about an hour.
Since Trump returned to the White House last year, Washington and Beijing have been at a standoff over trade issues. On October 30, 2025, Trump and Xi Jinping met in South Korea and reached consensus on a series of issues. The Chinese side agreed to postpone the implementation of rare earth export controls for a year and to buy a large amount of US soybeans. The US side agreed to postpone the implementation of a measure that would put thousands of Chinese companies on the Department of Commerce’s export control blacklist. The US also agreed not to impose a 100% tariff on Chinese imports.
On February 4th, Trump and Xi Jinping had a phone call. Trump mentioned that China is considering increasing purchases of agricultural products, including raising soybean purchases for the current season to 20 million tons. This move is seen as Beijing’s goodwill gesture ahead of Trump’s potential visit to China in April.
In addition to meeting with Wang Yi, Pompeo also met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel during the Munich Security Conference. According to a statement released by the US State Department, Pompeo and Merkel discussed urgent global challenges, including securing supply chain security, advancing efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war, and strengthening US-European partnerships. They reiterated the importance of deepening US-German partnership on these key priorities.
On Saturday, Pompeo will deliver a highly anticipated speech at the Munich Security Conference.