Arabella Kushner Sang for Xi Jinping at 5. At 15, She Sat in the Front Row for His White House Visit and Reportedly Greeted Him in Mandarin
· Thought Catalog
Updated 4 minutes ago, October 2, 2026
At the September 24, 2026 arrival ceremony for Chinese President Xi Jinping, Arabella Kushner sat in the front row and greeted Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, in Mandarin with “Welcome to America,” according to the New York Post.
The 15-year-old daughter of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner sat between her mother and Secretary of State Marco Rubio while the two leaders spoke, with JD and Usha Vance on Ivanka’s other side. The Independent reported that Cabinet officials including Scott Bessent and Pete Hegseth sat farther from the podium.
Her placement had history behind it. In April 2017 at Mar-a-Lago, a 5-year-old Arabella sang the folk song Mo Li Hua in person for Xi and Peng. That November in Beijing, Trump showed Xi a tablet clip of her reciting the Three Character Classic and greeting the couple, and screens at the Great Hall of the People state dinner later played the video, the Straits Times reported, citing AFP. The Daily Beast rendered the greeting as “Hello, Grandpa Xi. Hello, Grandma Peng.”
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Ivanka said a Chinese nanny began teaching Arabella Mandarin as an infant. Trump called her language skills fluent in a 2017 New York Times interview, telling the paper, “She speaks fluent Chinese. She’s amazing.”
The Daily Beast says Trump rolled out his granddaughter to charm Xi, and a Daily Mail write-up called placing the “impeccably dressed teenager” in Xi’s orbit something that “appeared intentional.” The White House pushed back: spokesperson Anna Kelly told the Independent that including the first family on such visits is “completely typical and appropriate.”
Xi’s September 23-25 Washington trip was his first there in more than a decade. At the East Room state dinner, Arabella sat between her mother and Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
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