Mortgage Rates Rise Above 7%
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What is the overall news roundup for Thursday, September 24?
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President Trump welcomes Xi Jinping to the White House with pomp and pageantry. Plus, bond yields keep climbing and hitting their highest levels in decades. And mortgage rates are back above 7 percent, and they might stay there.
Many are realizing that after years of waiting for rates to fall, this may just be the housing market's new normal.
It's Thursday, September 24th. I'm Alex Osola for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. Today, President Trump kicked off his state visit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping with an extravagant welcome ceremony. Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, entered the White House on a red carpet. On the roof of the building, members of the U.S. military held Chinese and U.S. flags, and there was a flyover of U.S. fighter jets and a stealth bomber. In joint remarks from the White House, Trump said that he and Xi would discuss issues including national security, technology, and AI.
The decisions we make in these areas today can promote peace and prosperity for decades and decades to come.
Journal national security reporter Robbie Grammer has been following the proceedings and is here to discuss. Robbie, how would you describe the tone of those first joint remarks this morning?
There is this very warm surface level bromance that Trump is trying to strike here with Xi, this other great superpower leader here, even as there are all these tensions in the U.S.-China relationship right now that they have to discuss. morning, Xi Jinping himself said the Thucydides trap can be avoided, which is really significant. The Thucydides trap is this wonky reference to ancient Greece, where Athens and Sparta fought each other. It's this phrase used in international relations about a rising power and a superpower. coming to a confrontation with each other.
How did President Trump welcome Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House?
Is that inevitable? And so he brought that up to say, look, China is this rising superpower. America is the dominant superpower. There is a way in which we can avoid confrontation and we need to work to do that.
It really seemed from their comments this morning that both leaders were trying to make nice. Xi talked about inviting American students to China and that he's sending a pair of giant pandas to the Atlanta Zoo. But under the surface, there are, of course, a lot of serious issues. We know from some reporting you've done, Robbie, that actually in the weeks and months before this summit, the Trump administration has been quietly holding talks with China about its nuclear arsenal. Some people have worried that China hasn't been complying with a ban on testing. What impact might that have on today's discussions?
It's unclear right now if this will come up. Every attempt that the United States and successive administrations has made in trying to get China to engage in arms control talks, China has just said no. But right now what they're doing is they're talking about trying to at least increase transparency in how China is developing its nuclear weapons program. The U.S. earlier this year accused China of violating the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. This is something that China vehemently denies. But it's added this layer of pressure to the U.S.-China relationship.
After all the diplomatic meetings today, Trump and Xi are expected to make more joint remarks this evening before their state dinner. What are you going to be looking out for as an indication of how the talks are going?
I don't think you're going to see either leader here explosively jab the other one if they are saying that, yes, maybe there will be extensions on the truce in the trade war.
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