China confirmed on Monday that President Xi Jinping will be on a three-day state visit to the United States (US) from September 23 to 25. Trump and Xi last met in Beijing in May.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson announced on Monday, as per state media Global Times, “Chinese President Xi Jinping will pay a state visit to the United States from Sept 23 to 25 at the invitation of US President Donald Trump.”
Xi is likely to visit the US with his wife Peng Liyuan, skipping the UN General Assembly session entirely.
Trump plans to accord a rare airport reception to Xi by personally receiving him on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post earlier reported.
The trip will be Xi’s first to the US since 2023, when he met former US President Joe Biden during a visit that included attending the APEC summit in San Francisco.
The Chinese leader will have an “in-depth exchange of views” with Trump “on major issues concerning bilateral ties and world peace and development” as both countries look to work jointly to “properly manage differences,” Guo was quoted by Bloomberg as saying at a regular briefing in Beijing on Monday.
From tariff to rare earth minerals to AI — Trump and Xi are likely to discuss a host of issues during the upcoming summit in Washington, with an expiring trade truce. Here’s all you need to know:
The upcoming talks assume significance against the immediate backdrop of Trump signing a new sanctions law that authorises tariffs of up to 100 per cent on the top five countries buying Russian oil and gas, including China and India.
China rejected the US attempts to impose tariffs over its purchases of Russian oil and gas, saying normal trade cooperation between countries should not be subject to interference by third parties.
“China opposes long-arm jurisdiction and unilateral sanctions that have no basis in international law and lack a UN Security Council mandate,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told reporters last week.
Despite the tariff threat, Washington and Beijing are also negotiating a reciprocal tariff-reduction framework, covering products worth $30 billion from each side, China’s commerce ministry said.
The consultations aim to reach a reciprocal tariff reduction arrangement at the earliest possible date, ministry spokesperson Huang Ling said.
Edgard Kagan, senior adviser in China studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said, according to Euro News, that the Chinese anticipate an announcement of around $30 billion (€26bn) in duty-free or low-tariff imports in return for fulfilling the purchase commitments they made in May, while Washington believes it will extract further purchases in return.
Deals on agriculture and aircraft are likely, possibly with signing ceremonies attached, and Trump has previously hinted that Boeing could feature, the report added.
The discussion may revolve around the fragile trade truce struck in Busan, South Korea, on October 30, 2025. Under the deal, Trump agreed to trim tariffs in exchange for Beijing cracking down on fentanyl precursors, resuming soybean purchases and pausing rare-earth export controls.
It runs for one year and is due to expire roughly five weeks after the summit. The truce is due to expire in November. Both sides want it extended, but not by the same amount.
“The Chinese have wanted an agreement to extend the trade ceasefire through the end of the Trump administration,” Scott Kennedy, trustee chair in Chinese business and economics at CSIS, was quoted by Euro News as saying.
“The Trump administration just wants to extend it for a few months to maintain leverage on China. I think they’ll end up somewhere in the middle, probably at about a year,” Kennedy reportedly observed.
While both sides have tempered expectations for major breakthroughs, investors and analysts are watching for signs of an extension of the trade truce.
The war in Iran, which has impacted energy supplies and cost, could feature in the discussion between the two world leaders. China is Tehran’s biggest oil customer, and Xi appears in no rush to help Trump in his efforts to hurt the Middle Eastern country economically.
According to reports, Washington sees Xi as uniquely able to exert pressure on Iran to bring an end to the war that has dragged Trump’s approval rating to the lowest of his political career.
Reuters earlier reported that Beijing is selling billions of dollars’ worth of goods to Iran through a sanctions-evasion scheme. China’s foreign ministry says it is not aware of such a scheme.
All eyes are also on the state dinner to be hosted by Trump in Washington, which will attended by tech giants.
Trump said he would hold a state dinner for Xi. Sam Altman of OpenAI, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon and Apple chairman Tim Cook are all expected, according to Politico, which cited four people familiar with the arrangements.
They arrive amid an argument the AI industry is having with itself, with Anthropic’s Dario Amodei calling for slow frontier development.
According to Bloomberg, Beijing is also likely to remind the US that the status of Taiwan is one of its few red-line issues. The US is the biggest military and political supporter of the island democracy, which China views as its territory.
While Washington may want to prioritise trade talks, for Beijing, the US approach to Taiwan could be key, said Wu Xinbo, a professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University who advises China’s foreign ministry.
“If you accommodate our concern on the Taiwan issue, then we would be willing to accommodate your concerns on other issues, be it law enforcement or on purchases of US agricultural products,” Wu was quoted by CNA as saying.
A $14 billion (€12bn) arms package for Taiwan was pre-approved by the US Congress in January but has not been formally notified, a delay interpreted as an attempt to avoid a probable irritant before this summit and, previously, ahead of Trump’s visit to China.
Ahead of the visit, Chinese and US economic and trade officials held talks on Sunday local time on economic and trade issues of mutual concern, with artificial intelligence (AI) also among the topics discussed, Xinhua News Agency reported on Monday.
Top officials who led the Sunday talks in New York included Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, the report added.
“The two sides held candid, in-depth and constructive exchanges on major economic and trade issues of mutual concern, including implementing the consensus reached during previous economic and trade consultations and promoting bilateral trade and investment,” the report claimed.
Dialogue was also held on issues related to artificial intelligence.
Ahead of the summit, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also held a telephone conversation on September 17, focusing on high-level exchanges between the two countries.
