President Donald Trump's decision to leave Wilbur Ross in Washington appears to be another sign of the Commerce chief's diminished role in trade negotiations. | Win McNamee/Getty Images g-20 summit Wilbur Ross left out of G-20 activities

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — The White House has yet to release a list of officials who will accompany President Donald Trump at the highly anticipated dinner meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping here on Saturday night — but Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is conspicuously absent from the U.S. delegation at the G-20 summit.

Trump's decision to leave Ross back in Washington appears to be another sign of the Commerce chief's diminished role in trade negotiations, after he had taken the lead over the trade portfolio early in the administration. POLITICO previously reported that Ross could be part of an expected exodus of Trump Cabinet officials.


A Commerce Department spokesman, when asked on Friday to explain why Ross was not at the summit, said the secretary attended an aerospace industry event in California, on Thursday. The spokesman said Ross was "currently making a long-planned visit" to Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where his focus was "to support our troops and view first hand our commitment to space innovation."

In April 2017 Trump tapped both Ross and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to lead a short-lived Comprehensive Economic Dialogue with Beijing, which collapsed after it failed to produce significant results.

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Ross, who turned 81 this week, led a big U.S. business delegation to Beijing last year, when Trump stopped at the Chinese capital on his way to the 2107 APEC leaders meeting. Additionally, the Commerce secretary has been part of high-level trade talks this year that involved a number of U.S. and Chinese officials and also were unsuccessful in resolving trade frictions.

The Trump-Xi dinner is seen as a critical juncture in the U.S.-China trade relationship. Mnuchin, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, chief White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow and White House trade adviser Peter Navarro are expected to be at the table on Saturday night.

Lighthizer has spearheaded the effort that prompted Trump to impose tariffs on around $250 billion worth of Chinese goods, actions that led Beijing to strike back with duties against $110 billion in U.S. exports. Trump's trade chief said Friday that he expected the Trump-Xi dinner would be a "success," but stopped short of predicting the two sides would reach a deal.

