White House to Roll Out the Red Carpet for Historic Xi Jinping Visit - BBC News
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US President Donald Trump will host Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week in Washington...
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...Xi is expected to be greeted personally by Trump at Andrews Air Force Base on Wednesday...
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...followed by a White House welcoming ceremony on Thursday featuring a military flyover and nearly 500 military personnel.
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The trip marks Xi's first state visit to the US in just under a decade...
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...and his third meeting with Trump since the US president began his second term in office.
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Adding to the high-stakes state visit, a US-China trade agreement reached last year is set to expire in November.
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...Experts said they will be watching for some sort of announcement around an extension of this agreement during the upcoming state visit.
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Xi's trip to Washington... ends on Friday, will have plenty of pomp and pageantry... including lavish dinners, private tours and performances.
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David Sacks, a fellow for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations... described the planned extravagant welcome by Trump as "really unprecedented".
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"From meeting Xi Jinping at Andrews Air Force Base to having a flyover for Xi as well... this is not something afforded to any US ally."
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...Sacks continued, "It's quite, quite stunning."
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Trump is expected to address several issues as he meets Xi, particularly on tariffs and trade.
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The US president has long criticised his country's trade deficit with China... which stands at more than $91bn (£68.2bn), according to the latest US Census Bureau data.
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...Chinese rare earth exports to the US are down despite the agreement last October.
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US and Chinese officials held trade talks on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday... but failed to make meaningful progress ahead of the Xi visit, multiple sources told the BBC.
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...the talks focused on finding areas of agreement around non-tariff trade issues and agricultural exports... according to sources familiar with White House thinking.
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US negotiators are expected to continue talks with Chinese counterparts in Washington on Wednesday after Xi's arrival.
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Another likely talking point between Trump and Xi is artificial intelligence... a topic that David Firestein from the Bush China Foundation said has "climbed rapidly toward the top of the agenda" ahead of this visit.
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...China and the US are competing in what has been described as an AI arms race... but after a series of recent high-profile security incidents involving the emergent technology, there has been growing pressure on the Trump administration to regulate AI and slow its development.**