Inside the trade team that will accompany Donald Trump to the G20 summit meeting with Xi Jinping
- It isn’t known if all nine advisers will be with the US president during trade talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and his team
- The specific representatives in the Chinese delegation remain unknown but top diplomats are set
US President Donald Trump is expected to bring a team of nine aides to Buenos Aires for talks with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, though it is not known whether all nine will sit down at the dinner table with Xi on Saturday evening, according to a source who was briefed on the situation.
In addition to the last-minute inclusion of Peter Navarro, the chief trade adviser to Trump and a notorious China trade hawk, Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Matt Pottinger, the senior director for Asian affairs on the American National Security Council who had worked in China as a journalist, are expected to be part of the team accompanying Trump to the G20 summit meeting.
The other six aides on the list are White House chief of staff John Kelly, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, national security adviser John Bolton, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
When Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived at Buenos Aires airport on Thursday evening, Yi Gang, China’s central bank governor, was among the Chinese officials waiting for him at the tarmac.
While China has yet to officially announce the list of advisers who will accompany Xi to the dinner with Trump, China’s foreign ministry had said that Ding Xuexiang, Xi’s chief of staff, Yang Jiechi, the top diplomat, China foreign minister Wang Yi and the economic planning agency chief He Lifeng would attend.