Trump Has Invited China’s Xi Jinping to Inauguration: Report

Zachary Folk
·1-min read
Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in 2019
KEVIN LAMARQUE - REUTERS

President-elect Donald Trump invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend his inauguration in January, multiple sources told CBS News on Wednesday.

The president-elect reportedly sent the invite to the leader of China, a nation he has threatened with tariffs for months, shortly after his electoral victory in November, the sources told the network.

It is unclear if the Chinese government has accepted the invite, and the Chinese Embassy has not commented on the invitation. A Chinese head of state has never officially attended the presidential inauguration, according to State Department records.

The Trump transition team did not immediately confirm the invite or respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.

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Foreign leaders, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Argentinian President Javier Milei, have already been making the rounds at Mar-a-Lago in recent weeks.

The Chinese leader has not been one of the foreign dignitaries spotted at the Florida club, but Trump previously claimed he has been in contact with Beijing since the election. “We’ve had communication as recently as this week,” Trump said of Xi in an interview with Meet the Press taped last Friday.

Trump struck a hard line against China on the campaign trail, threatening the country with steep tariffs on goods like electric vehicles. He repeated similar threats as recently as last week—demanding China and other nations in the BRICS group commit to keeping the U.S. dollar as their reserve currency or again face another “100% tariff.”

In the weeks since his electoral victory, Trump has also nominated several notable China hawks to top Cabinet positions—including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for secretary of state and Rep. Michael Waltz for national security adviser.

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