The pandas are coming!

That promise from Xi Jinping, China’s leader, could end up being regarded by many Americans as the most positive diplomatic outcome of his state visit to Washington this week.

While meeting with President Trump, Mr. Xi announced on Thursday morning that China would soon send two pandas to Zoo Atlanta. The zoo is one of a handful of institutions in the United States that have paid to host pandas on loan from China over the last half-century.

Mr. Xi called the black-and-white fur balls “envoys of friendship” — an icon of literal soft diplomacy.

Zoo Atlanta sent a family of pandas back to China in October 2024, and since then it has been in talks with Chinese conservation officials to get another pair. Zoo officials announced in August that they had reached a new research agreement with the China Wildlife Conservation Association, one of two groups in China that do scientific studies on pandas, promote their breeding and arrange to lend them to overseas institutions.

That announcement in August opened the way for the Chinese group to organize the shipping to Atlanta of two pandas, Ping Ping (male) and Fu Shuang (female). Mr. Xi’s declaration confirmed that would happen soon.

U.S.-China relations are a roller coaster, and tensions have been high for the last decade. American officials accuse China of unfair trade practices and supporting adversaries of the United States, and the governments clash over the U.S. naval presence and Chinese military activity around Taiwan and in the greater Pacific region. But panda diplomacy abides.

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