Xi Jinping appears to be leaving China's CEOs at home for his Washington trip

As recently as last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping was expected to arrive in Washington with a large delegation of Chinese CEOs, as President Trump touted a dealmaking atmosphere surrounding the two leaders' summit.

Now, Xi is scheduled to arrive this evening with a significantly smaller business delegation in tow, dampening expectations even as an array of US executives remains set to be on hand for the gathering.

Chinese state media announced Xi's departure for the US on Wednesday, noting only a small entourage that included family members and political aides.

The South China Morning Post reported that a lack of progress on deals had led to the paring back of the list from the Chinese side.

US industry leaders had been expecting a wide array of Chinese business leaders to be in attendance from electric car makers and agriculture companies.

A White House official didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. Trump's team previously confirmed Thursday's state dinner would include Sam Altman of OpenAI ( OPAI.PVT ), Jensen Huang of Nvidia ( NVDA ), and Elon Musk of Tesla ( TSLA ).

The summit is set to begin this evening, when Trump will travel to Joint Base Andrews to greet Xi when he arrives at 6 p.m. ET.

The tone shift around business deals comes as other policy areas like AI and trade are expected to see only small steps forward , and signs emerge that Trump is set to roll out the red carpet for the Chinese leader.

Close observers of US-China relations have noted that Xi did not do the same when Trump visited Beijing in May, sending a subordinate for Trump's arrival.

Some of the US CEOs set to attend this week's festivities, including Huang and Musk, traveled with Trump to Beijing earlier this year.

Members of both leaders' economic teams are set to be in attendance, including US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, who met in New York over the weekend.

Bessent left that meeting describing the talks as constructive and saying the US had proposed a new AI safety "notification mechanism" that could allow Bessent and He and other officials to communicate quickly in the event of an incident related to AI. But China has yet to publicly embrace the idea.

The lack of further progress on AI underscored the modest ambitions of this week's summit that might be high on pomp and circumstance but light on policy.

There is little expectation of the US or China agreeing to broader limits on AI, such as regulating frontier models. In fact, both sides have signaled that they are eager to race forward with the technology.

Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.