(US, 16th) US President Trump visited China from the 13th to the 15th, attending a state banquet on the evening of the 14th. However, a video has been circulating online claiming that Trump secretly looked at Chinese President Xi Jinping’s notebook while Xi was away from his seat. But fact-checking agencies have pointed out that this claim is “misleading,” as the black folder shown in the video is actually Trump’s own folder.
According to United Daily News, Pakistan’s fact-checking team iVerify Pakistan pointed out that an X account claiming to focus on conflict topics posted a video of the state banquet on the 14th. The footage shows Trump quickly flipping through a black folder before closing it again.
The caption of the video claims: “Trump secretly looks at Xi Jinping’s little notebook. This scene happened during the state banquet of Trump’s visit to China on the 14th. After Xi Jinping got up and left his seat, Trump reached over to open the notebook in front of him and took a look, quickly closing it afterward. Rubio, who was sitting nearby, saw the whole thing but said nothing. This reminds people of the footage from the October 22, 2022, closing ceremony of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party, when Hu Jintao reached for documents in front of Xi Jinping, then was escorted from the venue.”
This video was soon widely circulated across multiple platforms, attracting a lot of attention, so the iVerify Pakistan team conducted a fact-check. First, they conducted a keyword search and confirmed that there had been no reports of this event by any credible international, US, or Chinese mainstream media. They then looked for the full footage of the state banquet, locating the relevant moment on Forbes’ YouTube channel. At the time, Xi Jinping had left his seat to walk toward the podium to give a speech, and Trump was flipping through a black folder.
The fact-check team pointed out that the folder in the video bore the official seal of the President of the United States. Through reverse image search and comparison, they confirmed that the seal matched the one used on official folders of the US president.
iVerify Pakistan ultimately determined that the viral claim is misleading. In the video, Trump is not looking through Xi Jinping’s notebook, but rather his own folder. The folder in the video bears the official seal of the US president, which confirms it belongs to Trump.