Chinese and US experts are meeting on Monday to discuss trade ties in Iowa, the state that has long embraced China and particularly President Xi Jinping.

The Sino-US Friendship House in Muscatine has welcomed the latest delegation of Chinese officials keen to retrace President Xi’s footsteps. It was there that Xi, then a CPC official from the northern province of Hebei, briefly stayed while studying agriculture in Iowa in the mid-1980s.

China continues studying US large-scale agricultural methods for growing crops to help fuel the growing appetite of the millions of people lifted out of poverty. Furthermore, China is buying these crops and the machinery that produces them, driving explosive export growth in US states like Iowa.

The visit of the Chinese delegation comes as President Xi and US counterpart Donald Trump work toward fulfilling a 100-day deadline for lifting barriers that impede trade. Washington wants to boost exports to China to reduce a huge trade deficit, and for farmers in Iowa that means “making hay while the sun shines,” as CGTN’s Owen Fairclough puts it.