The timing is set for President Trump’s closely watched summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the first face-to-face meeting of the two leaders during Trump’s second term.
The two will meet next Thursday in South Korea.
“Thursday morning, local time, President Trump will participate in a bilateral meeting with President Xi of the People’s Republic of China before departing to return home to Washington, D.C., on Thursday night,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced on Thursday afternoon.
The meeting between the leaders of the world’s two largest economies comes on the sidelines of next week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Gyeongju, South Korea.
Gyeongju is 11 hours ahead of Washington, D.C., meaning the sit-down is set to begin late Wednesday evening in Washington local time.
The two presidents have spoken over the phone at least twice so far during Trump’s second term, most recently in September.
The meeting comes after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met directly with his Chinese counterpart, Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, last week in Washington, in a meeting that Bessent called “frank and detailed.”
Bessent is scheduled to meet with He again this weekend in Malaysia as those two leaders set the table for the meeting of the two presidents, which is expected to cover a wide array of issues from rare earth minerals to semiconductor export controls to Chinese purchases of Russian oil, as well as purchases of US soybeans.
Leavitt suggested later in Thursday’s press briefing that China could already be scaling back its purchases of Russian oil, citing “international news out of China this morning” in an apparent reference to a Reuters report that some Chinese state oil companies are suspending Russian oil purchases.
Chinese state media confirmed this weekend’s meeting with Bessent in Malaysia, saying that “important issues in China-US economic and trade ties” will be on the table.
Leavitt on Thursday also formalized the rest of the president’s itinerary for his larger trip to Asia.
The president will depart Washington on Friday night to travel to Malaysia. He will arrive Sunday morning local time.
In Malaysia, the president will participate in a bilateral meeting with the prime minister of Malaysia and attend a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders.
The president will then head to Tokyo for a meeting with the new prime minister of Japan, Sanae Takaichi, who recently became the nation’s first female leader.
