Trump to make three-day visit to China next month, White House says

The three-day trip, at Beijing’s invitation, comes more than eight years after Trump’s first visit to China during his first stint as president.

Donald Trump will travel to China from March 31 to April 2, the White House has said, in what will be the first official visit to Beijing by a United States president since Trump’s last trip there in 2017.

The dates, confirmed by a White House official on Friday, come as Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping have respectively described “excellent” and “good communication” between the two countries in recent months.

“That’s going to be a wild one,” Trump said on Thursday of the planned trip.

“We have to put on the biggest display you’ve ever had in the history of China,” Trump said.

The announcement of Trump’s China visit came shortly before the US Supreme Court on Friday struck down the tariffs that Trump had imposed on countries around the world, in a tactic the US president has openly used to influence other countries to support his policies.

Tariffs will likely be on the agenda in Beijing, as will China’s response to the US’s trade threats, including no longer buying soybeans, previously the top US export to China.

Beijing has already hosted a number of other Western leaders in recent months, including Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who touted new trade deals and a lifting of Canada’s ban on buying Chinese-made electric cars during his visit.

China’s increasing global exports of electric vehicles come as Beijing has invested heavily in new technologies and renewable energy in recent years, potentially further setting it apart from the US, where Trump is doubling down on fossil fuels.

Washington also continues to provide weapons sales and other support to Taiwan, which Beijing has promised to unify with mainland China.

This will be Trump’s first trip to China since the COVID-19 pandemic, which the then-US president labelled as the “Chinese virus”. Trump then downplayed the virus’s potential consequences in the US, where more than one million people died during the pandemic.

Since reopening its borders in January 2023, following strict self-imposed isolation during the pandemic, China has seemingly increased its efforts to engage with the outside world in recent months.

In addition to hosting Western politicians, China has also opened its doors to popular US live streamers such as Hasan Piker and Darren Watkins Jr, also known as Speed, while also attracting US citizens to its social media apps.