WASHINGTON — A tech-heavy guest list, the fashion choices of those on it, who sits where, their body language throughout the night and what's on the menu: these are the softer — often and glitzier — details of diplomacy.
Thursday's state dinner for China's leader Xi Jinping featured a cavalcade of billionaires, Washington powerbrokers, business leaders and the type of festivities that excite President Donald Trump, who has a reputation for reveling in hosting parties.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman signed autographs as he arrived at the White House. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang chose a tuxedo over his trademark black leather jacket. Bernard Arnault, the CEO of French luxury goods company LVMH, walked through black security fencing to get to the White House.
“Everyone wants to be there,” Trump said during this week's U.N. General Assembly session. “It's the hottest ticket in town.”
Xi and Trump face tensions over Taiwan, trade and artificial intelligence during business hours — even as an ongoing, First Amendment fight over press access at the White House has unfolded. But Trump publicly chose to focus on showing Xi his White House updates on Thursday afternoon, before attention quickly turned to the flashy details of the swanky meal honoring Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, in the White House East Room.
Asked on Monday night who'd be in attendance, the president responded, “sort of everybody,” adding, “I would say you have the entire tech world, the entire banking world and a lot more.”
The dinner was expected to showcase “the positive vibes surrounding the visit” and indicate that “the president is very focused on signaling warmth and a close personal connection with Xi,” said Edgard Kagan, senior adviser and chair in China studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
First lady Melania Trump’s menu features a first course of yellow squash velouté with wild mushrooms, fresh herbs, crispy pancetta and drizzled scallion oil.
After that, guests will get sesame-crusted sea bass with braised baby bok choy, roasted garden eggplant and a sauce verte. Dessert is vanilla crémeux with sour cherry confit and walnut frangipane, as well as ice cream with honey from the White House.
Trump has already sought to one-up Xi after Beijing
The dinner comes after the president took the unusual step of personally greeting Xi and his wife on Wednesday as they arrived at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington. Normally, presidents wait for their state visit guests to arrive at the White House itself before offering a formal welcome.
During Thursday's arrival ceremony, Trump and Xi reviewed troops with trumpets blaring and the U.S. president saying, “From the time of my first election in 2016 President Xi and I have forged a friendship.”
Thursday's dinner will include an abundance of technology industry titans, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Tesla and SpaceX's Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai of Google, OpenAI President Greg Brockman and Michael Dell, the CEO of Dell Technologies.
During his own visit to Beijing in May, Xi treated Trump to a state dinner that unfolded beneath grand chandeliers at the Great Hall of the People. That event included many tech luminaries who are likely to be at the White House this time, such as Tim Cook, formerly Apple's CEO and Musk.
Trump has since begun referring to the White House ballroom that he's building as the "Great Hall of the United States" to rival where he dined in China.
“This is a very large hall,” Trump recently said of the Great Hall of the People before adding, “But we’re gonna top it.”
Trump used to decry the pomp he now revels in
In 2015, as then-President Barack Obama was preparing to host Xi for a state visit, Trump — in the midst of his first run for president — criticized all the hubbub.
“Just take them to McDonald’s and go back to the negotiating table,” Trump said then, during a rally in South Carolina. He later conceded on Fox News Channel that Xi might at least be worthy of getting “probably a double-size Big Mac.”
Xi visited Trump in 2017 for the first time. But the White House said the Chinese wanted that meeting to happen at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, viewed as a more relaxed setting that might defuse some of the high expectations of a formal summit in Washington.
A dearth of pageantry didn't mean a lack of extraordinary moments, however, underscoring just how important having China's leader dine with Trump can be.
Later recounting the incident to Fox News Channel, Trump said he sprung a surprise on Xi just after dinner, noting that the U.S. was striking Syria as the pair was having “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you’ve ever seen, and President Xi was enjoying it.”
Trump said he told Xi that U.S. forces had “just fired 59 missiles” and that China's president “was eating his cake. And he was silent.”