San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie is heading to Asia later this month, and he’s bringing some serious panda diplomacy with him. During his first international trip as mayor, Lurie will visit Shanghai and Seoul, two of SF’s sister cities, with a mission to strengthen cultural ties and boost tourism through the city’s arts and culture scene. And yeah, he’s definitely going to talk pandas while he’s over there.

“We are leaning into our arts and culture. We have said it’s driving our economic recovery. We want to go tell our great sister cities of Shanghai and Seoul all about San Francisco”, Lurie explained. The trip kicks off April 17, and he won’t be going solo. Soyoung Lee, the director and CEO of the Asian Art Museum, will be joining him alongside other prominent local business and cultural leaders.

“The whole mayor’s team and all of us in the arts and culture in the city are deeply committed to continuing our roles in that cultural and economic exchange”, Lee said.

Now, about those pandas, which honestly feel like they’ve been stuck in bureaucratic limbo for way too long. When KGO asked Lurie directly if he planned to discuss bringing giant pandas back to the SF Zoo during his trip, he confirmed they’re actively in talks. “We are in dialogue about it”, Lurie told KGO. “We are making sure our zoo is ready to host those pandas. So we’ll have more conversations about that”.

This whole panda situation has been a wild ride. Former Mayor London Breed made it her 2024 campaign promise to bring pandas to the SF Zoo, and she actually pulled it off by securing $20 million in funding for a panda habitat. But then she lost her reelection bid just six days after announcing the funding. To make matters worse, a city oversight commission had released a scathing report about the SF Zoo’s safety issues a month before, which made the whole panda plan look questionable. At the time, Lurie seemed pretty unenthusiastic about the whole thing.

But things appear to be shifting. Last year, SF Zoo CEO and Executive Director Tanya Peterson told the Recreation and Park Commission that the pandas were still happening and were expected to arrive by April. So now we’re at April 2026, and honestly, the timing of Lurie’s Asia trip feels like it could be exactly what this project needed to move forward.

Whether the mayor can actually make some progress on bringing these endangered animals to the Bay Area remains to be seen, but at least there’s some genuine momentum building. Stay tuned, we might actually be seeing pandas at the SF Zoo sooner rather than never.