Trump plans to greet Xi at airport on arrival, officials say
Other planned events include an arrival ceremony at the White House, a Rose Garden military review and a state dinner with a number of tech CEOs.
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump plans to greet Chinese President Xi Jinping at Joint Base Andrews, at the airport of the military base just outside Washington, DC, on his arrival next week for a White House visit, a senior US official told reporters on Friday (Sep 18).
It is rare for the US president to greet visiting foreign leaders at the airport.
Senior US officials who briefed reporters about the visit said it will include an arrival ceremony inside the White House, a Rose Garden military review and a state dinner in the evening.
They said among the guests for the dinner will be a number of tech CEOs, including Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Sundar Pichai of Alphabet, Sam Altman of OpenAI, Tim Cook of Apple, Elon Musk of Tesla, Jensen Huang of Nvidia, and Michael Dell of Dell Technologies.
“Thousands of people would love to be at that dinner,” Trump told reporters during Friday's briefing in the Oval Office.
"I've told a lot of very good friends of mine, 'you just can’t come'," Trump added.
Issues such as trade, flow of rare earths to the global economy and AI are expected to be among the topics that will be discussed during the visit, officials said.
First ladies Melania Trump and Peng Liyuan will also hold a separate engagement, US officials said during Friday's briefing.
Xi and Peng will be the guests of honour at a formal state dinner for the Chinese delegation on Sep 24, that will be hosted by the Trumps.
