24th September 2026 – (Washington) US President Donald Trump travelled in person to Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday to greet Chinese President Xi Jinping, a gesture British reporting called the first presidential airport welcome for a foreign leader there since 1962, aside from special papal visits.
Under ordinary state-visit protocol, a visiting head of state arrives by car through the White House North Portico, passes ranks of US troops and finds the president waiting at the West Wing entrance. On less formal occasions, guests sometimes enter by a side door between the White House and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, away from cameras. By going to the airfield himself, Trump broke with that White House-centred choreography and signalled unusual weight on the China itinerary.
The previous presidential greeting at Andrews for a secular foreign leader was 64 years earlier, when John F. Kennedy received British prime minister Harold Macmillan. Kennedy went repeatedly to the base during his presidency, but the journeys across Washington often snarled traffic; he later reshaped ceremonial practice so that formal welcomes took place on the South Lawn. Papal trips have remained an exception in more recent decades: Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton met Pope John Paul II at the airport in 1987 and 1999, George W. Bush greeted Pope Benedict XVI in 2008, and Barack Obama welcomed Pope Francis at Andrews in 2015.
The asymmetry with Trump’s own China trips has drawn notice. When he arrived in Beijing on a state visit on 13th May this year, Chinese vice-president Han Zheng met him at the airport. During his first term, then Politburo member and state councillor Yang Jiechi handled the greeting. Trump did not take first lady Melania Trump on that May journey; Peng Liyuan’s presence beside Xi on this US visit has therefore been read as a reciprocal gesture of goodwill.
Wu Xinbo, dean of Fudan University’s Institute of International Studies, told mainland media the presidential airport greeting was highly unusual and showed how seriously Trump treats the Chinese visit. With US midterm elections due in November, he argued, the White House wants domestic audiences to see its China diplomacy as a success, hoping that narrative will help Republicans at the polls.