Donald Trump picked Terry Branstad, the long-serving Iowa governor who proved a loyal and unflinching surrogate in the presidential race, to be the ambassador to China.#Trump's choice of Branstad is likely to reassure Beijing, which has been rattled by Trump's rhetoric about
#China and his breakingdecades of protocol with his outreach to
#Taiwan. The
#Iowa governor has deep ties to China and a personal friendship with Chinese President Xi Jinping
April 1985: Xi Jinping, then a Communist party official and feed cooperative director from Hebei Province, spends several days in Muscatine leading a delegation of government officials. Xi stays with Tom and Eleanor Dvorchak in their split-level ranch house and visits Monsanto and Heinz facilities as well as family farms.
Gov.
#Branstad, then in his first term as Iowa governor, meets
#Xi during the visit.