As President Donald Trump prepares to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea for their first face-to-face talks in more than six years, roughly 300 American families are appealing to him to reopen China's shuttered intercountry adoption program — and to bring their waiting children home.
For Aimee Welch, a mom in Louisville, Kentucky, it's a plea born of heartbreak and hope, James Rosen, Newsmax's chief White House correspondent, reported Friday.
Welch and her husband, Stephen, have five children — four biological sons and a daughter adopted from China, and a matched daughter who has waited since 2019 for them to be allowed to travel to China to complete their adoption.
Gracie, 9, was adopted in 2017 after being born without a left hand or forearm. Penelope, now almost 12, has remained stranded in China since 2020, when the country first halted its foreign adoption program amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
"For a couple of years, we were able to schedule video calls with her," Welch told Newsmax. "We sent her birthday packages and a photo blanket with pictures of our family. We were told she carries that blanket with her everywhere and says, 'This is my mom and my dad. These are my brothers and my little sister.' "
China, once America's largest source for international adoptions, suspended new adoptions during the pandemic and formally ended the program in 2024. Families like the Welches, who spent tens of thousands of dollars and years bonding with their children, were left in limbo.
Welch founded the nonprofit Hope Leads Home to represent affected families. The group petitioned the Biden administration for action, but the effort yielded no results.
Meanwhile, Chinese authorities have sharply curtailed foreign adoptions.
An estimated 98% of the children in China's orphanages have severe disabilities or lifelong medical conditions — conditions many prospective American parents are prepared to manage with better medical care and resources.
A conference call last month between affected families and Elizabeth Gracon, the State Department's acting deputy assistant secretary for Overseas Citizens Services Bureau of Consular Affairs, brought little relief.
State Department officials confirmed that China's stance remains unchanged and admitted the issue has never been raised above the deputy secretary level.
"We are asking now for intervention at the presidential level," Welch said. "We believe that President Trump is a skilled negotiator — and if anyone could bring Penelope and the other children home, it's President Trump."
The Trump administration has shown sympathy for child welfare cases abroad. Earlier this year, King Abdullah II of Jordan informed the president that his country was airlifting 2,000 Gazan children for medical treatment, a move that drew praise from Trump.
First lady Melania Trump, who has long championed vulnerable children, corresponded in an August letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin about displaced Ukrainian children.
A senior administration official told Newsmax the White House "cannot accept the Chinese government's decision to halt the adoption of these children, who had already been matched with loving parents," adding that "we continue to call on the Chinese government to allow the completion of these adoptions."
Whether President Trump will raise the issue directly with Xi remains uncertain.
But for Aimee Welch and hundreds of families like hers, the upcoming summit represents perhaps their best hope in years.
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