US President-elect Donald Trump has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend his inauguration next month, CBS reported, citing multiple sources.
The invitation signals an effort by Trump to court his Chinese counterpart on the heels of threats of fresh tariffs against the world’s second-largest economy.
Trump said in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press that aired last weekend that he had communicated with Xi recently, but declined to say what they had discussed. They last met in person in June 2019 on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Japan.
Trump has been meeting with and courting multiple foreign leaders, including during a trip to Paris last weekend when he met with French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
No Chinese leader has ever joined an inauguration ceremony of the US president, typically attended by ambassadors. State Department records show no foreign head of state has done so since at least 1874. Xi last visited the US in November 2023 to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and held talks with President Joe Biden.
Biden hasn’t been to China during his term, partly due to travel disruptions during the Covid-19 pandemic. Leaders of the world’s two largest economies usually take turns to visit each other’s nation. If the pattern holds, it will be the US president’s turn to travel.
Chinese foreign ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The US and China are bracing for a renewed standoff after Trump campaigned on implementing sweeping tariffs targeting all Chinese goods with 60 per cent duties. Last month, he vowed to impose an additional 10 per cent duty if Beijing doesn’t help stem the flow of fentanyl that is coming across the US southern border.
Xi congratulated Trump following his election win and expressed his desire to keep relations stable, but has in other occasions sought to set boundaries with the incoming administration by talking up “four red lines” in bilateral ties.
In his final meeting with Biden, Xi warned against any move to undermine the Communist Party’s grip on power, push the nation toward democracy, contain its economic rise or encourage independence for Taiwan, the self-ruled island claimed by Beijing.
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China is also ratcheting up trade tensions by banning the export of several materials with high-tech and military applications.
Earlier this week, Xi said trade and technology wars “will have no winners” while reiterating that Beijing is willing to maintain dialog and manage its differences with Washington.
Trump has tapped a number of China hawks to lead the economic and security portfolios in his incoming administration.
He has named Representative Mike Waltz as his national security adviser and is nominating Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of State. Both have called Beijing an adversary and advocated for decoupling from its economy.
But Trump has also tapped former Senator David Perdue as his ambassador to China, enlisting a businessman with experience working in Asia, who stands to offer a potentially moderate voice on policy toward Beijing.
