Sevgi Ceren Gokkoyun
12 May 2026•Update: 12 May 2026
US President Donald Trump will be making the first official trip to China by an American president since his first term in office in 2017 to meet with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to address escalating Iran war, geopolitical tensions, and trade diplomacy.
Trump is expected to arrive in Beijing on Wednesday, and ahead of the high-level visit, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng are currently holding preparatory economic and trade consultations in Seoul on May 12-13.
Trump is bringing a delegation of corporate executives of American tech, financial, aviation, and agricultural giants to the Chinese capital. The roster includes Apple CEO Tim Cook, Tesla and SpaceX’s Elon Musk, Meta’s Dina Powell McCormick, Boeing’s Kelly Ortberg, and Cargill chair Brian Sikes.
Additionally, financial sector leaders will be represented by Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Visa’s Ryan McInerney, and Mastercard’s Michael Miebach, signaling Washington’s intentions to negotiate for new openings in China’s tightly regulated payment systems market.
Trump is also expected to secure purchase commitments from China for American agricultural products like soybeans, Boeing commercial aircraft, and energy exports, as his core economic policy aims to shrink the US trade deficit.
Negotiations to tackle the supply chain of rare earth elements and to extend the fragile trade war ceasefire allowing vital manufacturing materials to flow from China to the US are expected to be on the agenda.
The Trump administration is expected to establish a dedicated bilateral communications channel for military and strategic artificial intelligence (AI) models at the summit.
Meanwhile, American and Chinese leaders are reportedly considering a deal worth $1 trillion in Chinese investments to build plants on American soil, which experts say is unlikely to be realized given Trump’s partially weakened diplomatic status due to the Middle East conflict.
The ongoing war with a fragile ceasefire will heavily influence the economic discussions at the upcoming summit, with the American side expected to pressure the Chinese side to take advantage of Beijing’s deep energy ties and diplomatic influence over Tehran to help stabilize the region after its joint attacks with Israel, and Iran’s subsequent retaliations, paralyzed maritime trade, spilling over across sectors, stoking global recession concerns.
Xi is widely expected to counter Washington’s demands by raising concerns over its continued military and diplomatic support for Taiwan, following the US arms sale to the island late last year, which Trump said will be on the agenda while speaking to the members of the press at the White House on Monday, but the American president is hopeful the talks will be partly about energy and Iran.
Trump claimed the US has been taken advantage of by China under previous presidents, claiming he has a positive rapport with the Chinese president.
In October 2025, the two leaders met in South Korea, bringing a temporary truce on several economic issues based on positive mutual agreement after Washington and Beijing agreed to a one-year postponement of 24% reciprocal tariffs previously scheduled to take effect on Nov. 10, 2025.
The same temporary framework also involved China to commit to taking the necessary steps to control fentanyl exports and its chemical precursors to the US.
The US delegation said it would reduce an existing 20% supplementary tariffs imposed on Chinese goods down to 10% in exchange for cooperating in the narcotics trade.
All eyes now turned to the upcoming meeting of the two leaders in China to assess whether these temporary truces can evolve into permanent deals amid the Middle East war and the geopolitical complexities of the Asia-Pacific region.
* Writing by Emir Yildirim in Istanbul
