The president Donald Trump will host a state dinner for Chinese leader Xi Jinping in the East Room of the White House next Thursday, September 24, as the centerpiece of a three-day official visit announced by the U.S. government this Friday according to the EFE agency.
Xi will arrive on Wednesday at Andrews Air Force Base, just outside of Washington, where Trump will personally greet him at the foot of the plane, a ceremonial gesture that makes the Chinese leader the first foreign head of state to be received in this manner by Trump since his return to the presidency.
The day on Thursday will be the most intense: a welcome ceremony with a military parade, a private meeting between both leaders, and in the evening, the State dinner, which will also be attended by Melania Trump and the wife of Xi, Peng Liyuan.
Trump himself acknowledged that the available space limits the evening to about 125 guests, as the ballroom at the presidential residence is under renovation.
"It's a shame that we don't have the ballroom open, because if we did, we could have thousands of people dining," the president stated. "I can literally tell you that thousands of people would want to be at that dinner. It's a very hard ticket to obtain."
Among the confirmed or expected guests are some of the most influential names in the technology and finance sectors: Sam Altman (OpenAI), Jensen Huang (Nvidia), Tim Cook (CEO of Apple), Jamie Dimon (JPMorgan), Jane Fraser (Citigroup), and David Sacks, former AI czar of the White House, whose attendance was confirmed by NBC News.
The massive presence of technology leaders is not coincidental: competition in artificial intelligence and access to advanced semiconductors are the most sensitive core of the bilateral relationship at this time.
The U.S. maintains export controls on Nvidia chips to China, a restriction that Huang himself has publicly questioned, stating that China "has all the chips it needs" despite the prohibitions.
Trump also indicated that the summit agenda goes beyond protocol. "We are going to have some quite important meetings. We will have many different agreements. We are not doing this just for our health," he stated. The anticipated topics include trade, Taiwan, artificial intelligence, Iran, and Ukraine.
Regarding tariffs, the president recalled that at one point, the duties on Chinese products reached 145%, although he acknowledged that "it was too much, it was causing a lot of harm," and that he did not want to keep them at that level.
This will be the second State Dinner that Trump hosts during his second term, following the one he offered to King Charles III and Queen Camilla of Great Britain. For Xi, the invitation was formally extended in May during Trump's State visit to Beijing, when Xi greeted the American president with the highest honors in the Great Hall of the People.
The visit will conclude on Friday the 25th with a joint tour of the U.S. National Archives by both leaders, where the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are held, as part of the events commemorating the 250th anniversary of American independence.
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