When Donald Trump was elected in November, the Dalai Lama said he was keen to meet the incoming U.S. president, but since then Trump has cozied up to China's leader Xi Jinping, making it less likely the man Beijing deems a separatist will get an invite to the White House anytime soon.
The United States has long recognized Tibet as part of the People's Republic of China, and does not back Tibetan independence. But that has not deterred all the recent U.S. presidents before Trump from meeting the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.
The United States is widely seen as the last major Western power that has still held meetings with the Dalai Lama despite Beijing's objections that such encounters foment separatism.