Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, Photo: REUTERS
The first official visit by a Chinese leader to the United States in more than a decade begins on Wednesday, when President Xi Jinping will fly to Washington, where important talks and a bit of courtship are expected during a meeting at the White House with US President Donald Trump.
When the plane carrying President Xi lands at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, Trump will be there to greet him, US officials told reporters.
This is unusual as Trump usually greets foreign leaders only when they arrive at the White House.
The main part of the visit is on Thursday, when Trump and his wife Melania will host Xi and his wife Peng Liang for a ceremony on the “State Floor” of the White House.
Trump and Xi will conduct a review of troops in the White House Rose Garden before retiring for a closed-door meeting, while their wives will have a separate program.
Xi and his wife will also be guests of honor on Thursday, when Trump and the first lady host a Chinese delegation for a state dinner in the White House’s East Room, where both presidents will deliver speeches.
“Thousands of people would love to be at that dinner,” Trump told reporters in his Oval Office on Friday, adding that he had to tell “a lot of my good friends” that they couldn’t come, but he invited “my friends in the tech industry.”
Among the guests announced for the dinner are Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Tesla and SpaceX owner Elon Musk, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Technologies, the White House said. Invitees include Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser and Apple’s former CEO Tim Cook.
On Friday, Xi and his wife will return to the White House for tea with the Trump couple, who will take them to the National Archives, home to some of the most important founding documents of the United States, which are celebrating their 250th anniversary.
Then the guests from China will go to Andrews Base, then home.
US officials have said that Washington and Beijing may be willing to ease some tariffs on certain non-strategic goods in the wake of the visit.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Besant is expected to meet in New York over the weekend with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng to discuss economic issues, with artificial intelligence technology among the topics.
Also on the agenda is China’s stockpiles of rare earth minerals, essential for everything from smartphones to fighter jets. Beijing has used its near-monopoly on these minerals to pressure the United States into negotiations during the trade war, which began with Trump’s tariffs and other sanctions on China.
Trump visited China in May, where he had been once during his first term, and was given a ceremonial welcome by Xi.
Xi last paid an official visit to the US in September 2015, during the presidency of Barack Obama.
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