US President Donald Trump will roll out the red carpet for Xi Jinping on Wednesday, giving the Chinese leader a rare personal welcome at the airport to kick off their superpower summit.
Tellingly, Xi did not afford Trump the same courtesy for the US president’s state visit to Beijing in May. Instead, Trump was greeted at the airport by China’s vice president. In a highly unusual move for a US president, Trump and his wife Melania will travel to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland near Washington to personally welcome Xi on the tarmac at 6 pm (2200 GMT). Analysts said that China had meanwhile begun to look past Trump, whose second term ends in early 2029, and was in many ways playing for time and using the truce to consolidate its position.
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said Xi “left Beijing by special plane” Wednesday, accompanied by his wife Peng Liyuan, his right-hand man Cai Qi and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, among others. Jonathan Czin of the Brookings Institution said expectations were low for any concrete results apart from possibly prolonging a trade truce agreed when Xi and Trump met in South Korea last year. Republican Senator Roger Wicker, chairman of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday that he would have advised against such a “lavish welcome” for the Chinese Communist Party leader.
US presidents very rarely travel to the airport to greet foreign leaders, although Trump welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin planeside in Alaska last year.
