China’s President Xi Jinping is scheduled to land in Washington Wednesday evening for a two-day summit with President Donald Trump, marking his first visit to the U.S. capital in more than a decade. Xi will arrive at Joint Base Andrews with his wife, Peng Liyuan, where officials have planned a formal arrival ceremony.
The summit, running Thursday through Friday evening, opens Thursday morning with a State Arrival Ceremony featuring 479 military personnel positioned across the South Lawn, State Floor and Rose Garden of the White House, according to a senior administration official.
Artificial intelligence is expected to dominate much of the discussion. Trump has framed AI competition with China in stark terms, telling the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday that “whoever wins superintelligence wins.”
“Every major new technology brings challenges, and superintelligence is no exception,” Trump said. “That’s the group that wins. And we’re leading now over China by a lot and everyone else. And we’re going to keep it that way.”
Beyond AI, the two leaders are expected to address a range of contentious issues, including intellectual property theft, trade practices, rare-earth mineral exports and China’s support for Iran during the recent U.S. military conflict there. The senior administration official said tariff reductions on non-strategic goods, rare-earth exports and possible export controls will be on the agenda. Trump is also expected to press Beijing to curb exports of fentanyl precursor chemicals.
Trump is also likely to raise the case of Gulshan Abbas, an American who has been detained in China for eight years after the country accused her of “participating in a terrorist organization,” a charge that followed her sister’s public criticism of China’s treatment of Uyghurs, according to Forbes. House Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans have said they expect Trump to push for her release.
Cultural Program and State Dinner
While the leaders meet, First Lady Melania Trump is expected to accompany Peng Liyuan to the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art to view works described as spanning centuries of Sino-American cultural exchange.
The day concludes with a state dinner drawing a roster of prominent technology and business executives, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, SpaceX founder Elon Musk, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser and Apple board Chairman Tim Cook.
Building on a May Truce
The summit follows Trump’s trip to Beijing in May, where he and Xi agreed to a trade truce that paused an escalating tariff dispute, though only for non-strategic goods. That arrangement has held so far. During the same visit, China agreed to purchase billions of dollars in additional American agricultural products, including soybeans, and 200 Boeing aircraft, an order Boeing has confirmed. At the time, Trump described the agreements as “fantastic trade deals” that were “great for both countries.”
