{"id":356737,"date":"2026-09-25T14:48:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T14:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/356737\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T14:48:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T14:48:18","slug":"trump-gifts-xi-a-bald-eagle-sculpture-invites-him-to-tour-new-ballroom-at-white-house-state-dinner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/356737\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump gifts Xi a bald eagle sculpture \u2014 invites him to tour new ballroom \u2014 at White House state dinner"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Trump presented Chinese leader Xi Jinping with a sculpture of a bald eagle and invited him to tour the White House ballroom \u201cconstruction site\u201d during his toast at the state dinner Thursday night<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe bald eagle is the national symbol of the United States and an embodiment of the free and soaring spirit of America,\u201d Trump said. \u201cAnd we hope it will find a nice place, a wonderful place, in Beijing.\u201d <\/p>\n

Trump said the gift was made \u201cby an extraordinary American artist\u201d and \u201cdesigned in personal collaboration with Melania<\/a> and myself.\u201d <\/p>\n

President Trump presented Chinese President Xi Jinping with an eagle sculpture at the White House state dinner on Sept. 24, 2026. AP Photo\/Alex Brandon<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bald eagle is the national symbol of the United States and an embodiment of the free and soaring spirit of America,\u201d Trump said. \u201cAnd we hope it will find a nice place, a wonderful place, in Beijing.\u201d
\n AP Photo\/Alex Brandon<\/p>\n

Just before he revealed his gift to Xi, the president invited his dinner guests to walk through the massive new White House ballroom<\/a> that is still under construction. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs a special treat in honor of President Xi and Madame Peng, I\u2019d like to invite everyone in the room to visit through that beautiful curtain in the back door,\u201d Trump said. \u201cIt\u2019s all lit up and it looks beautiful.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll be the first people to step foot on that,\u201d the president continued, \u201cand we\u2019ll do that maybe after we\u2019re finished with the entertainment tonight. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnybody who wants to walk into a construction site that\u2019s nice and clean and sparkling, it\u2019s our honor to have you do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump and Xi shake hands after the presentation. Getty Images<\/p>\n

The first couple greeted Xi and his wife as the first lady wowed in a white bow blouse and sleek black tuxedo-inspired pants.<\/p>\n

Thursday night\u2019s state dinner menu consisted of a three-course meal that featured \u201cAmerican ingredients with subtle Chinese influence,\u201d and was inspired by the first lady\u2019s palette.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a lot of details that comes in to plan the state dinner,\u201d Melania Trump told \u201cFox & Friends\u201d<\/a> Wednesday morning. \u201cThere is protocol that you need to follow. Every detail I was involved [in] from tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, Trump showed off the new renovations of the White House grounds, including the Rose Garden and the recently installed granite helipad where Marine One was sitting.<\/p>\n

Xi\u2019s visit coincides with the United Nations General Assembly in New York, but the Chinese leader remained in the US Capital for the three-day summit with Trump.<\/p>\n

During the high-stakes meetings, the two leaders and other officials discussed several topics including \u201cpressing issues concerning security, technology, and super-intelligence,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

Trump kicked off the days-long visit by greeting Xi at the bottom of his plane<\/a> after he arrived at Joint Base Andrews on Thursday, a rare, historic move and the first time a US President has done so since John F. Kennedy welcomed British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in 1962.<\/p>\n

It is the second time the two leaders have met this year after Trump traveled to Beijing in May.<\/a><\/p>\n

US Military officials in the Pentagon were working to retrieve parts of an F-35 fighter jet that were seized by the Chinese government in May, according to a report first released by Politico after Xi had landed in the Capitol Region.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe F-35 Joint Program Office and Department of War are aware of a shipment issue of unserviceable F-35 Lightning II components,\u201d<\/a> the Pentagon said in a statement provided to The Post.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are actively working with US authorities and industry partners to retrieve these components, investigate the incident, and place safeguards to avoid a future occurrence,\u201d the statement added.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Trump presented Chinese leader Xi Jinping with a sculpture of a bald eagle and invited him to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[827,153,9,11,10,49,51,50,58,8093,14198],"class_list":["post-356737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-china","tag-donald-trump","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-us-news","tag-washington-dc","tag-xi-jinping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}