WASHINGTON, D.C. / Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in the United States on Wednesday for a three-day state visit, opening a closely watched round of diplomacy with President Donald Trump as Washington and Beijing try to manage persistent disputes over trade, advanced technology, artificial intelligence, Taiwan and China’s relationship with Iran.

Trump and First Lady Melania Trump personally welcomed Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, an unusually high-level airport reception that underscored the importance Washington is attaching to the visit. The two leaders shook hands, spoke briefly and posed for photographs as a military band played, ceremonial cannon fire sounded and a B-1 bomber conducted a flyover. According to C-SPAN records cited by Reuters, it was the first time in 11 years that a U.S. president had personally greeted a foreign leader at Joint Base Andrews; the previous occasion was President Barack Obama welcoming Pope Francis in 2015.

Xi’s September 23-25 trip is his first visit to the United States in nearly three years and his first state visit to Washington since 2015. It also follows Trump’s visit to Beijing in May, making Thursday’s White House summit the leaders’ second face-to-face meeting this year. China’s Foreign Ministry has described the exchange of presidential visits within six months as a significant moment in bilateral relations, saying Xi and Trump will discuss China-U.S. ties as well as broader questions of global peace and development.

A major economic development came just hours before Xi’s arrival. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington and Beijing had agreed to extend their trade truce for another two months, moving its expiration from November 10 to January 10, 2027. The arrangement was originally reached in Busan, South Korea, in May 2026, after tariff retaliation between the two countries had driven some bilateral duties into triple-digit territory. Bessent said the extension would give negotiators additional time to explore a broader economic agreement.

Trade is expected to dominate Thursday’s Trump-Xi talks. Among the unresolved issues are tariffs, U.S. agricultural exports, Chinese purchases of American goods, rare-earth minerals and magnets, semiconductor restrictions and controls on advanced technology. Bessent said China was meeting its commitment to purchase 25 million tons of U.S. soybeans but was behind on a separate pledge involving $17 billion in other agricultural purchases. U.S. officials have also said deliveries of Chinese rare-earth materials have not fully met earlier commitments.

Artificial intelligence has emerged as another important area of both rivalry and possible cooperation. Bessent said U.S. and Chinese officials had discussed establishing a communications mechanism to notify one another about serious AI safety incidents. He said the two sides had agreed to launch such a channel, although Reuters noted that China had not publicly confirmed the arrangement in the same terms. Competition over high-end chips, AI infrastructure and export controls nevertheless remains one of the central strategic disputes between the two powers.

Taiwan and Iran are also expected to feature prominently. Beijing is likely to raise its longstanding objections to U.S. support and arms sales to Taiwan, while Washington is expected to maintain restrictions on the transfer of sensitive technologies to China. China’s economic ties with Iran and the wider Middle East conflict are also on the agenda. Reuters reported that the summit could additionally produce movement on cooperation against drug trafficking, military-to-military communications and the cases of Americans and others detained in China, though major breakthroughs remain uncertain.

The White House is preparing an elaborate state welcome on Thursday. According to the official schedule, 479 U.S. military personnel representing all branches of the Armed Forces will participate in the arrival ceremony. The event will include military honors and demonstrations and conclude with a flyover by a B-2 Spirit stealth bomber and four F-22 Raptor fighter jets. Trump and Xi are then scheduled to hold talks before attending a state dinner later in the evening.

The visit will conclude Friday after Trump and Melania Trump host Xi and Peng for tea at the White House. The two couples are then scheduled to visit the National Archives, where they will view historical documents connected to U.S.-China relations before the formal farewell.

Neither side is signaling that decades of strategic rivalry will be resolved in a single summit. But the extension of the trade truce, continued leader-level engagement and discussions over AI, critical minerals and economic cooperation suggest that both governments are seeking to prevent competition from escalating into a broader confrontation.

With decisions by Washington and Beijing affecting global markets, technology supply chains, security in the Indo-Pacific and developments in the Middle East, international attention is now focused on what concrete agreements — if any — emerge from Thursday’s Trump-Xi summit at the White House.