Trump confident Xi will proceed with scheduled visit this month

President Donald Trump says he’s not worried about Chinese President Xi Jinping backing out of a planned state visit to Washington later this month, calling the upcoming summit “very exciting” and expressing optimism about productive discussions between the world’s two largest economies. The visit, scheduled for September 24, would mark Xi’s first trip to the White House in more than a decade. It would also include a state dinner. How we got here Trump extended the invitation during his own state trip to Beijing back in May, a visit that ran from May 13-15 and centered on establishing what officials described as a framework for “constructive stability.” That phrase is doing a lot of heavy lifting, covering everything from trade disputes to technology competition to the perpetually sensitive question of Taiwan. Trump publicly confirmed the upcoming visit on September 3-4, framing it as a continuation of the diplomatic momentum built during his Beijing trip. Since then, Xi has maintained an active international travel schedule across multiple nations, with no signals from Beijing suggesting the Washington trip is in jeopardy. Analysts have pegged the likelihood of the summit actually...