WASHINGTON D.C. – With seven days to go before a high-stakes meeting between the leaders of the United States and China, some key logistical details remain undecided, potentially hamstringing planning for the business deals, trade talks, and technology-related discussions for the two countries.
Interagency conversations to prepare briefing materials and talking points for President Trump to present to the Chinese leader and his delegation have not yet been completed, some U.S. officials say.
Uncertainty over how many seats the Chinese delegation will be given at the state dinner that night has hampered the Chinese delegation from finalizing which tech executives may accompany Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
The details of the planning are according to interviews with 10 current and former U.S. officials as well as three people involved with meeting planning, all of whom requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly. The White House did not provide an on the record statement when asked for comment.
Despite the lingering questions, China remains optimistic about the summit.
"The Chinese are very enthusiastic about this summit because I think it's a way for them to manage the U.S.," said Randall Shriver, former assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs and current chair of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which provides recommendations to Congress on China.
However, in private, top level Chinese leaders from the country's foreign ministry and elite Politburo Committee have expressed concern to U.S. representatives in the last four weeks that the U.S. has been finalizing an agenda and security and protocol details up until the last days before the summit.
"Every meal, every moment they sit down and are photographed, the way that they are positioned on stage in the arrival ceremony, the amount of time which they are asked to speak, if they speak, the kind of composition of the crowd: all of these things are something that Beijing will pay attention to and will want not simply to negotiate but will want to feel certainty about," said Julian Gewirtz, a historian and scholar at Columbia School of Public and International Affairs.
"Perfect reciprocity"
The Trump administration has embraced its reputation as an ad hoc negotiator. Its last-minute working style has flummoxed their counterparts in Beijing, who have tried to avoid a repeat of a preparation process haphazard enough to prompt a top Chinese diplomat to chide some of their American counterparts for their "half-a**ed" planning following President Trump's May visit to Beijing, according to a person in the meeting with the diplomat who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly.
Yet during a July visit to Washington headed by Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu, Beijing posed more than a dozen follow-up logistics questions and clarifications to American officials that did not receive concrete answers because the logistics awaited final confirmation from the White House, according to two people familiar with the contents of the meeting who also requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly. A senior U.S. official, speaking on background because they are not authorized to speak publicly, said the Chinese vice foreign minister's visit was unrelated to the planning for the upcoming meeting.
U.S. representatives say summit planning has picked up since then, but remains behind schedule compared to preparation for previous state visits of similar magnitude.
The paralysis in planning for this meeting is partially due to competing agendas within various agencies in the U.S. government, according to the 10 current and former U.S. officials NPR spoke to.
The U.S. has ceded no more than "perfect reciprocity," according to four of the people, meaning China's Xi Jinping will receive programming and access not exceeding what President Trump enjoyed in Beijing in May.
As a result, Xi's team dropped an early proposal to have him speak at an American university in Washington, D.C. during his September trip, because Trump had not been asked to deliver a speech on a Chinese campus during his visit in May, according to two people familiar with trip planning not authorized to speak publicly. The senior U.S. official said the White House never received a request for Xi to speak at any event.
One of the most pressing concerns are calls by companies and industry experts for the U.S. and China to cooperate on creating guardrails on developing and using artificial intelligence. Hoping to court Chinese investment, the White House has encouraged China to bring along entrepreneurs and executives, according to three people familiar with Chinese diplomatic planning for the trip.
But with about a week to go before the visit, Beijing has not finalized a list of which executives it will bring, in part due to uncertainty over U.S. planning and because China's Xi does not usually travel abroad with business leaders. The senior U.S. official said they are unaware of any business executives coming as part of the Chinese delegation.
For this visit, the White House is planning a state dinner with about 100 seats available, according to President Trump. (During Xi's last state visit to the U.S. in 2015 during the Obama administration, Xi was feted with a 200-person banquet.) Beijing asked for more than half the seats, hoping to accommodate CEOs it may bring, according to two people in the business community who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record, leading to White House push back.
The Trump administration has also not answered requests to clarify what kind of meetings Chinese business executives would be able to secure if they came to Washington, according to the two people who meet frequently with Chinese foreign ministry officials but who are not authorized to speak publicly. This is making China even more uncertain about which business executives to bring.
Key issues
Another key issue on the table during Xi's visit to the U.S. is the impending expiration of a moratorium on Chinese export controls on rare earth products, and a parallel, one year delay on American export controls on advanced semiconductor chips which Chinese companies strongly need to further its AI goals. Both moratoriums expire on November 10.
However, officials from both the U.S. and China accuse each other of not holding up their end of the bargain and of quietly putting pressure on other supply chain chokepoints.
The U.S. has objected multiple times to China's ongoing total rare earths export ban on Japan, with whom China has an ongoing geopolitical dispute and where many U.S. suppliers are located, arguing that it is a violation of the rare earths truce, according to two people involved in rare earth disputes but who are not authorized to speak publicly.
The senior U.S. official said China's compliance on rare earth exports has been very disappointing.
American companies also have not received some export licenses for rare earths needed in specialized magnets, even after the moratorium, according to the two people in the disputes not authorized to speak publicly. In August, China's commerce ministry sanctioned the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA), a U.S. supply chain monitor which helps run a minerals supply chain audit program, sending a further chill through the Chinese critical mineral industry.
American companies have also been squeezed by China's ongoing export ban on phosphate, a key ingredient in fertilizer, which Beijing says is needed because of shortages caused by the Iran war.
Scott Bessent, the U.S. treasury secretary, has hinted at these tensions, saying in a Fox News interview in July after a call with China's vice premier over the summer: "You know, that's not an excuse for them to do things underneath the surface…We expressed our concern that the rare earths are not flowing as freely as they could, that they have taken some measures that are detrimental to U.S. businesses. And we said that if this continues, we will push back."
A public commitment from Beijing made during last spring's meeting, when Trump visited China, to buy at least 200 more Boeing planes from the U.S. has hit roadblocks as well. The U.S. has been reluctant to sell replacement spare parts for both Boeing planes and for China's first indigenous commercial airliner, the C919, which still relies heavily on American and European parts, according to two people who met with Chinese commerce officials recently but who are not authorized to speak publicly. In 2025, the U.S. briefly stopped all sales of parts for the C919.
The senior U.S. official said the US government is not a part of Boeing's negotiations with China.
Chinese officials were also angered with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recent actions barring the import of Chinese drones, routers, inverters and robots, saying they were violations of the "constructive relationship of strategic stability" framework raised during Trump's spring visit to Beijing.
The senior U.S. official called the FCC's actions a tool for Trump's reindustrialization agenda and said they are not targeted at China. The official did say China's recent State Council Decrees related to blocking enforcement of sanctions, including those of the U.S., "are all very disruptive to the promise of strategic stability."
Before Trump's visit to Beijing this past May, Chinese officials offered to extend the rare earths moratorium to the end of Trump's term, in January 2029, according to three former U.S. officials with direct knowledge but not authorized to speak on the record.
But the U.S. rejected the offer, requesting a six-month extension only, to be announced after Xi's visit this month, in the hopes of negotiating a better deal in the future, the three former officials said.
The senior U.S. official declined to comment on the ongoing negotiations.
Chinese optimism
Still, Chinese diplomats have told the U.S. they are optimistic about the summit.
Following Xi's visit to Washington, Beijing is hopeful Trump will attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen this November, according to the four people not authorized to speak publicly who met with senior Chinese officials.
"I think that's one of the reasons why they want to sustain diplomacy with Trump is they're pretty happy with the direction things are going," said Jacob Stokes, a senior fellow and deputy director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the think tank Center for a New American Security in Washington.
China's main goal will be less to achieve specific policy commitments from Trump but rather to focus broadly on achieving a spirit of "constructive relationship strategic stability," according to three people who met with high level Chinese officials in July.
During an August meeting between an American delegation and senior Chinese officials, Liu Haixing, a senior Communist Party official, said the "two sides have recently followed the direction set by the two heads of state, taken practical steps to strengthen communication and dialogue, advanced a positive agenda and achieved notable results."
The co-chairs of the Chinese and American sides shook hands in front of a large watercolor painting featuring the calligraphy, "the sun rises in the east."
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