The visit US president Donald Trump has planned to China at the end of the month will be limited to Beijing, due to his tight schedule and security concerns, a Hong Kong newspaper reported.
According to several sources cited by the South China Morning Post and familiar with the preparations, US advance teams arrived in the Chinese capital at the beginning of March and work to organise the summit has entered its “final phase.”
According to the sources, Trump will not travel to any other city, despite an initially broader itinerary having been considered — similar to those of recent visits by French president Emmanuel Macron, German chancellor Friedrich Merz and British prime minister Keir Starmer, who travelled to Chengdu, Hangzhou and Shanghai respectively in addition to Beijing.
That option was ruled out due to the lack of room in the US president’s schedule.
“Unfortunately, his agenda is very tight. There is no space to include a visit to a second city,” one of the sources told the newspaper.
The White House previously indicated that Trump will travel to China between March 31 and April 2, in what would be the first visit by a sitting US president to the Asian country since 2017, when Trump himself visited Beijing during his first term.
According to the Hong Kong newspaper, recent international tensions stemming from the US and Israeli strikes against Iran have had a “very limited” impact on summit preparations. Sources cited indicated that both sides consider the China-US relationship to be “the most important bilateral relationship in the world today” and that both Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping remain committed to holding the meeting.
Beijing has not yet confirmed the visit, though Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi urged on Sunday to “make thorough preparations” and “create a suitable environment” in bilateral relations — a possible veiled reference to the trip.
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Both countries have maintained a trade truce in place since October, following a meeting in the South Korean city of Busan, though uncertainty persists after the US Supreme Court questioned some of the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.
The South China Morning Post reported last week on a possible sixth round of trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing at the end of the week in Paris — still without official confirmation — at a time when the geopolitical environment has become even more tense following the Middle East escalation stemming from the US and Israeli strikes against Iran, which China has condemned.
