Two giant pandas were sent from Chengdu in southwestern China early this morning to their new home in Atlanta, USA, as part of an agreement between the American and Chinese governments, and this comes immediately after the conclusion of the summit between the two presidents in Washington.
During a three-day state visit to Washington and talks with US President Donald Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that the pandas would arrive in Atlanta in the coming days.
The loan of pandas from China to the Atlanta Zoo is one of the few concrete results of the state visit during which the two leaders expressed goodwill for cooperation, but did not announce solutions to some of the longstanding disagreements between the two countries, writes the AP agency.
Atlanta has been without pandas since 2024, and the new agreement on their transfer was announced back in April 2026, but no dates for their arrival were specified.
Ping Ping and Fu Shuang are two adult pandas that will be loaned to the Atlanta Zoo for 10 years. Both pandas are six years old and were kept at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. The male, Ping Ping, has dark black circles around his eyes, while Fu Shuang, the female, has a slightly protruding forehead, according to the Chinese agency Xinhua.
China has long used pandas as part of its global diplomacy, sending them through loan programs as a gesture of goodwill, and when tensions rise with a particular country, it allows the animal loan agreements to expire.
Xi said that the panda loan program is an example of “friendship between the Chinese and Americans.”
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