President Trump to receive Chinese President Xi Jinping on first state visit in more than a decade

President Donald Trump will greet Chinese President Xi Jinping personally when his plane lands at Joint Base Andrews for the start of his historic state visit.

The trip on Wednesday will be the first state visit for Xi in the U.S. for over a decade.

‘This is a very tough ticket for me. I’ve told a lot of very good friends of mine, “You just can’t come.”‘

The main portion of the visit will begin Thursday at an arrival ceremony on the State Floor of the White House when Trump and first lady Melania Trump will greet Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan.

The first lady and Xi’s wife will have a separate engagement from the presidents.

Later the Chinese president and his wife will be the guests of honor at a state dinner in the East Room with Trump and the first lady. Both presidents will give remarks at the dinner.

“Thousands of people would love to be at that dinner,” said Trump to reporters at the White House Friday.

“This is a very tough ticket for me,” he added. “I’ve told a lot of very good friends of mine, ‘you just can’t come.'”

Among those that are invited to the state dinner are Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Sundar Pichai of Google, Sam Altman of OpenAI, as well as Tim Cook formerly of Apple.

At the end of the ceremony, a B-2 Spirit bomber and four F-22 Raptors will reportedly conduct a flyover.

The Trumps will also later give Xi and his wife a tour of the National Archives.