President Donald Trump reportedly showed Chinese President Xi Jinping a collection of historical documents during their visit to the National Archives on Friday, including treaties a law professor said carry a pointed message for Beijing.
Henry Gao, a law professor at Singapore Management University, said several of them would have a very different meaning to a Chinese audience.
White House Correspondent for News Nation, Kellie Meyer, said a source familiar with the display identified the items as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, a brick from the Great Wall of China, two 19th-century U.S.-China treaties, an 1895 letter from China’s Guangxu Emperor and the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco.
President of China Xi Jinping (C) views the U.S. Constitution during a tour of the National Archives Museum with U.S. President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump and first lady of China Peng Liyuan on September 25, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty)
Gao pointed to the 1844 Treaty of Wanghia and the 1858 Treaty of Tientsin, which he said China regards as unequal treaties.
He also cited the emperor’s letter to President Grover Cleveland, thanking an American diplomat involved in negotiations during the First Sino-Japanese War. Those negotiations led to the Treaty of Shimonoseki, under which China ceded Taiwan to Japan.
The Treaty of San Francisco was the most striking choice, Gao said. China was excluded from the 1951 peace treaty with Japan and disputes its treatment of Taiwan. In November, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning called provisions concerning Taiwan and China’s territorial sovereignty “entirely illegal and null and void.”
Gao said the display looked to Beijing like a warning about the concessions Washington might seek next.
Speaking with host Matthew Boyle on Breitbart News Saturday, Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) weighed in on the historical documents Trump showed the Chinese President. McCormick said he did not know why Trump chose them, but suspected the president wanted Xi to understand America’s commitment to remaining a world leader.
“I don’t know what the president’s motivations were, so I won’t speculate, but I will say, you know, my wife was in the meeting during the president’s first term when President Xi came to Mar-a-Lago,” McCormick told Boyle. “My suspicion is that the president wanted to make sure that, in sharing that history, President Xi understands that iron hand and that commitment to America’s leadership in the world.”