Protocol dictates that the American president almost never goes to the airport to greet a foreign leader. Donald Trump broke with that tradition on Wednesday, personally welcoming his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, while his Treasury Secretary simultaneously announced that the trade war truce between Washington and Beijing would be extended until at least early 2027.
The Air China aircraft carrying Xi Jinping landed on Wednesday (around 00:40 Greek time Thursday) at Andrews Air Force Base, not far from Washington, where an honor guard of 21 men and fighter jets had taken position in the Chinese president’s honor as he begins a three-day visit to the United States. A red carpet had been rolled out, cannon salutes were fired, and the two national anthems were performed by an Air Force band.
President Trump, accompanied by First Lady Melania Trump, exchanged a handshake with his counterpart, who traveled with his wife Peng Liyuan. The two couples walked side by side — with the two heads of state leading the way — along the red carpet for a brief welcoming ceremony that included a military flyover featuring a formation of B-1 bombers and F-22 fighter jets — the kind of spectacular display the Republican president relishes. The two leaders then departed separately.
“We agreed today to extend (…) the economic de-escalation between our two countries, which was set to expire on November 10th (…) so that we have more time to see what we can do at the economic level,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent explained on Fox News. The trade truce is now set to expire on January 10, 2027. The two superpowers had agreed in October 2025 to suspend the exchange of sweeping tariffs and trade-restrictive measures that had rattled the global economy.
Beyond bilateral trade relations, tariffs, and Chinese rare earths, the summit is also expected to address security concerns arising from advances in artificial intelligence, as well as thorny international issues — above all, ongoing armed conflicts, including the US-Iran standoff — with Beijing being Tehran’s most significant economic ally — and the Russia-Ukraine war. Also on the agenda is the question of American support for Taiwan.
Among the most high-profile events of the visit will be a military parade. Trump will also host an official state dinner in honor of President Xi, to which top executives from major multinational companies have been invited — including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and Tesla, X, and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
This marks Xi’s first visit to the United States since 2023 — when he traveled to California for the APEC summit, where he met Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden — and his first visit to the White House in nearly ten years. It will be his third face-to-face meeting with Trump since the latter returned to the presidency. The two leaders are expected to meet at least twice more before the year is out: at the APEC summit in China and the G20 in Florida.
Donald Trump had extended the invitation to visit the White House during his own equally high-profile trip to Beijing in May. The agreement signed on Tuesday between the United States, Denmark, and Greenland regarding American military presence on the Arctic island may cast a shadow over the talks. The Trump administration has justified bolstering the US military footprint on the vast island by citing American “national interests” and arguing that Washington’s adversaries — including Russia and China — would seek to “control” it, and that Copenhagen would be unable to prevent such a move.
