Donald Trump has been treated to the full red-carpet treatment by China’s president Xi Jinping, lavished with imperial pomp rarely afforded a US leader as goose-stepping honor guards, thundering cannon salutes and flower-waving schoolchildren greeted him in Beijing.
The President’s motorcade swept into the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square at 10.01am Thursday almost exactly on schedule, with Trump emerging moments later in his signature dark suit and red tie to a blaring military fanfare.
He walked over to Xi, who was waiting by the steps, and the pair shook hands for a couple of seconds, with Trump warmly patting the stone-faced Chinese leader’s hand as they exchanged brief words.
Xi, accompanied by Trump, then worked the front row of the heavyweight US delegation lined up on the steps, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
The two leaders then mounted a red and gold dais as a military band struck up the Star Spangled Banner and troops in full ceremonial dress marched past.
A crowd of brightly dressed Chinese primary schoolchildren waved flowers and US and Chinese flags while chanting ‘welcome, welcome, welcome to China’.
Thundering cannon salutes boomed across Tiananmen Square round after round as Trump stood motionless beside an equally stern Xi, before the President broke into a broad smile as he saluted the troops.
The pair finally swept into the Great Hall after around 20 minutes of pageantry, US cabinet secretaries, officials and American business executives filing in behind them.
Trump is traveling with a delegation that includes his son Eric and daughter-in-law Lara, and Silicon Valley bosses Elon Musk of Tesla and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang.
It is Trump’s first meeting with Xi since the Iran war erupted on February 28.
Following Trump’s arrival at the Great Hall of the People, adjacent to Tiananmen Square, the two Presidents will buckle down for a roughly two hour bilateral meeting.
The President is expected to press Xi to lean on Tehran to accept a ceasefire and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, while Xi is widely expected to push for tariff relief and access to American-designed AI chips.
The summit was originally slated for March but was postponed when the war broke out.
Reports indicate that Xi has a very limited command over the English language, and Trump does not know mandarin, so their back-and-forth was more for show than substance.
Leading the two largest economies globally, Trump and Xi have a lot to hammer out in their two days together.
On Wednesday, Trump called on Xi to ‘open up’ his economy further to US businesses; a large cohort of 17 US CEOs were invited to the White House to act as economic negotiators to iron out roadblocks preventing further investment.
The President arrived late Wednesday evening local time in the Chinese capital before heading to his hotel for rest.
Trump was greeted on the tarmac by a military band, roughly 300 students waving US and Chinese flags and the nation’s Vice President Han Zheng.
