BEIJING – The city of Atlanta is set to welcome giant pandas once more.

On Friday, China revealed plans to send a pair of giant pandas to Zoo Atlanta, marking a continuation of its renowned panda diplomacy efforts. This move comes despite ongoing tensions with Washington and is timed just weeks before U.S. President Donald Trump’s eagerly awaited visit to Beijing.

The China Wildlife Conservation Association shared that male panda Ping Ping and female panda Fu Shuang from the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding will embark on a ten-year conservation collaboration. This initiative stems from an agreement made with Zoo Atlanta last year.

While the exact departure date for the pandas remains unspecified, preparations are well underway. The U.S. team is actively enhancing facilities to ensure a comfortable and secure habitat for the pandas, with Chinese experts offering technical support for these improvements.

This announcement comes ahead of President Trump’s mid-May trip to China, where he is expected to engage in discussions on a range of topics, including trade, with President Xi Jinping.

Zoo Atlanta expressed enthusiasm and gratitude on Thursday, stating it was both thrilled and honored to be entrusted with the care of the pandas and to collaborate with the conservation association.

“We can’t wait to meet Ping Ping and Fu Shuang and to welcome our members, guests, city, and community back to the wonder and joy of giant pandas,” the zoo’s president, Raymond B. King, said.

During an earlier giant panda agreement between the zoo and China that concluded in 2024, pandas Lun Lun and Yang Yang gave birth to seven bears, the zoo said. Lun Lun and Yang Yan and their two youngest offspring left Atlanta for China in October 2024, where the rest of their offspring reside, it said.

China’s giant panda loan program has long been known as a tool of Beijing’s soft-power diplomacy, but its conservation significance could have been an important reason Beijing is renewing its cooperation with U.S. zoos at a time of otherwise sour relations.

The association said Friday that the new round of cooperation will help China and the U.S. to yield more results in areas ranging from disease prevention and treatment to scientific exchanges.

Giant pandas have long been a symbol of the U.S.-China friendship, ever since Beijing gifted a pair of pandas to the National Zoo in Washington in 1972.

In 2024, the National Zoo in Washington and the San Diego Zoo also received pandas from China.