Private citizen Ivanka Trump got a front-row seat to listen to her father, President Donald Trump, deliver remarks alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Ivanka, 44, was spotted sitting next to her daughter, Arabella, 15, and Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Usha.
She got a better seat, closer to the action, than key cabinet officials like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
While Ivanka was an integral part of her father’s first term in office, serving as a senior advisor, she has largely stepped away from politics during her father’s second term. Meanwhile, her husband, Jared Kushner, has been working as Trump’s top diplomat to negotiate with Iran amid his father-in-law’s war and working to try to end Russia’s war with Ukraine.
Her well-placed positioning during Trump’s big day with Xi could be explained by the fact that Arabella, Ivanka’s eldest daughter, already has a long history with Xi.
During her grandfather’s first term, she sang Xi a song fully in Mandarin while Xi was visiting Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf club in Florida in 2017.
Later that year, when Trump was in Beijing, he showed Xi another video of Arabella singing in Mandarin in which she addressed the Chinese leader and his wife as “Grandpa Xi” and “Grandma Peng.”
“Our fields, beautiful fields, the jade green river flows past sweeping rice fields; the sweeping rice fields are like a swinging ocean,” she sang in the video.
It has been previously reported that Arabella had been learning Mandarin for years, studying with her Chinese nanny and also at her school in New York City before her grandfather took office.
The Trump-Kushner clan have also reportedly always been celebrating the Chinese New Year. Ivanka made a lengthy post this year ringing in “The Year of the Fire Horse.”
“The Year of the Fire Horse calls us to courage, to energy, to intention, and to fearless creation. It is a year for bold ideas, decisive action, and turning vision into something enduring,” Ivanka wrote in February, noting she was “stepping into it with clarity and conviction, ready to bring forward projects I have been quietly nurturing, ideas nearly ready to meet the light.”
Her father meanwhile has been absolutely gushing about his Chinese counterpart ahead of the big State Dinner later Thursday.
In a fawning Truth Social post, Trump complimented Xi and his wife’s looks.
He wrote, “I met President Xi at the plane (Airport!) yesterday and he looks strong, vibrant, and fit - Better than ever. Madam Xi, of course, BEAUTIFUL!”
