Tech Billionaires, a Bald Eagle and a Truce That Runs Out Jan. 10: Inside Trump's State Dinner for Xi

President Donald Trump greets Chinese President Xi Jinping in Busan, South Korea, on Oct. 30, 2025, the meeting that produced the trade truce now extended to Jan. 10. Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok (public domain, via Wikimedia Commons).

The first course was yellow squash velouté with crispy pancetta. The main was sesame-crusted sea bass. The trade outcome, as of the toasts Thursday night, was a two-month extension of a truce that now expires Jan. 10.

That is the ledger from President Donald Trump's East Room state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping, Xi's first White House visit in more than a decade, according to CBS News' live coverage. The day brought military bands, fighter-jet flyovers, a bald eagle sculpture for Xi and a guest list heavy with the richest men in American tech. It did not bring an announced tariff, rare-earths or soybean agreement.

A room full of tech money

The White House invite list, published by CBS, included Elon Musk, Nvidia's Jensen Huang, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Apple's Tim Cook, Google's Sundar Pichai, OpenAI's Sam Altman, Amazon's Jeff Bezos and TikTok investor Jeff Yass. Wall Street sent BlackRock's Larry Fink, Blackstone's Stephen Schwarzman and JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon. Megadonor Miriam Adelson was invited. So were three sitting Supreme Court justices: Chief Justice John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

Trump's children Ivanka, Eric and Tiffany also made the list, alongside Vice President JD Vance, several Cabinet officials and Fox News hosts Bret Baier, Jesse Watters and Laura Ingraham, CBS reported. (CBS noted that its own parent company's CEO, Paramount Skydance's David Ellison, was attending.) The guest traffic ran one way: CNBC reported that none of the American executives' Chinese counterparts were expected to attend.

"Everybody wanted to be there," Trump said of the guests. "I would say you have the entire tech world, the entire banking world, and a lot more."

In his toast, Trump called Xi and his wife "truly outstanding, amazing people" and said, "May all of our people know a future of harmony, peace and success." He then handed Xi the eagle and offered guests what he called a "special treat": a walk onto the construction site of his planned White House ballroom. "In honor of you, you'll be the first people to step foot on that," he said, adding that with the ballroom finished, "we would've had way more than a thousand people" at the dinner.

The deal that wasn't announced

The concrete economic news came the night before the dinner, from a cable-TV interview. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News' Bret Baier that the Busan truce, struck in South Korea last October and due to lapse Nov. 10, would roll forward. "That is going to be extended until Jan. 10 to give us more time to see what we can do on the economic front," Bessent said, according to The Hill. He also admitted he did not know whether a larger agreement was possible: "I don't know whether a bigger deal can be done, I don't know whether we will just roll the current deal."

Many observers had expected a six-month extension or longer, CNBC reported. Scott Kennedy of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told the network the short leash "suggests to me the U.S. is unsatisfied with China's offers and wants to keep the heat on." By late afternoon Thursday, Foreign Policy wrote that the two leaders had announced no comprehensive deals on tariffs, rare earths or soybean purchases.

Beijing tells it differently. Xinhua quoted Xi as saying the two sides reached a new trade arrangement, which he called "good news for the global economy," Yonhap reported; the Chinese outlet offered no details. At the dinner, Xi said the leaders had "reached common understanding on many issues" without saying what those were. Trump, who called the Oval Office session a "great meeting," ignored shouted questions about Taiwan, artificial intelligence and jailed Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai.

For Indiana, the unfinished business is not abstract. The Busan truce lowered tariffs, paused Chinese curbs on rare-earth exports and committed China to keep buying large quantities of U.S. soybeans, a pledge CBS reported Beijing has failed to keep. Jake Werner of the Quincy Institute told CBS that Trump wants to make sure China doesn't again use the leverage it showed "when it cut the U.S. off of rare-earth elements, and American factories started shutting down." Hoosier farmers and factory floors now have a Jan. 10 date circled rather than a signed agreement.

Cameras yes, reporters no

The dinner also played out against the administration's fight with the press. Trump announced last Friday that he was banning CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House. Overnight into Thursday, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ordered their hard passes restored for 14 days and wrote that the ban was likely unconstitutional, NBC News reported. Reporters from the three outlets were still turned away Thursday morning, prompting the judge to order the administration to answer in writing by 12:30 p.m. They were back on the grounds by the afternoon.

Because the White House had pulled CNN from the television pool Monday, the other four pool networks, including CBS, have refused to supply video until CNN's place is guaranteed. Several outlets declined to air the government's own feed of the morning arrival. Trump took to Truth Social to complain that CNN and "MSDNC" skipped an event he called "Actually made for Television," and promised: "Tonight's State Dinner at the White House, for President Xi, will be spectacular! The Media will be in attendance."

Some media were. According to Deadline, CNN White House correspondent Kristen Holmes said the network's credential for the North Portico arrivals was limited to a camera and audio. "Again, no editorial presence, just a camera and audio, which certainly seems like a reaction to President Trump saying that he wanted the CNN coverage of the event," Holmes said. MS NOW said it was barred as well. NBC reported that two CNN reporters and one from MS NOW who applied for credentials were turned away at the door.

Republican unease

Not all of the criticism came from Democrats. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who is retiring, told "CBS Evening News" anchor Tony Dokoupil he is "worried about the trend of spending more time with despots and less time with democratic leaders of nations." Of the red-carpet rollout, he said: "It's a WTF moment."

"It's not that Xi Jinping is coming here to learn how to become a democratic, capitalist nation. Xi Jinping is trying to understand how his opposition will ultimately embrace their worldview." — Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., to CBS News

Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said on the Senate floor Tuesday that "had the White House asked me for advice, I would have suggested the president not invite Xi Jinping to Washington for such a lavish welcome." Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, pointing to reports of Chinese help to Iran, said the president "should not be feting and praising Xi." Outside the North Portico, protesters chanted "Free Hong Kong" and "Keep Taiwan Free" as guests arrived, CBS reported.

No broader written deal had been announced as of CBS's update after 9 p.m. ET. The visit ends Friday with tea in the Red Room and a stop at the National Archives before Xi flies home. Xi told the dinner crowd that the two countries had arrived at "another historic juncture." Bessent's own clock, stated on Fox the night before, gives the administration until Jan. 10 to show whether it holds anything more than a menu and an extension.

Sources: CBS News live updates; The Hill; CNBC; Foreign Policy; Yonhap; NBC News; Deadline. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Written by Hoosiers, for Hoosiers.