President Trump visited Beijing on Wednesday for his first state visit to China since 2017, marking the first time a sitting U.S. president has visited China in nearly a decade. The President was accompanied by a ragtag group of CEOs and executives including Apple's Tim Cook, Tesla's Elon Musk, Nvidia's Jensen Huang, BlackRock's Larry Fink, Goldman Sachs' David Solomon, Citigroup's Jane Fraser, Boeing's Kelly Ortberg, Meta President Dina Powell McCormick, and GE Aerospace's H. Lawrence Culp.
The trip follows a trade truce reached at last October's Busan summit in South Korea, where both countries agreed to suspend their most damaging tariffs of the 2025 trade war, which at one point saw the U.S. impose 145% tariffs on Chinese goods and China retaliating with imposing 125% tariffs on American goods. That truce expires in October 2026, and this recent trip to China was expected to set the stage for future negotiations.
Here's what came out of the two-day summit:
- Trump announced that China agreed to purchase 200 Boeing aircraft, with the potential to expand to 750 planes “if they do a good job,” along with up to 450 GE jet engines. China's last major Boeing order was during Trump's 2017 Beijing visit when the country agreed to buy 300 planes, but orders dried up shortly after as relations soured. China has not officially confirmed the 200-jet order, but Boeing has as of this morning.
- China committed to $17B/year in U.S. agriculture through 2028 including soybeans, beef, and poultry. China is also restoring market access for U.S. beef and resuming poultry imports from U.S. states deemed free of bird flu.
- A new “Board of Trade” and “Board of Investment” will oversee future tariff and investment discussions. Both countries agreed to establish these two new bilateral mechanisms to handle trade and investment issues. Does that mean no more surprise tariff announcements from Trump?
- China agreed to “address U.S. concerns” over its export controls on rare earth minerals and critical minerals, which it leveraged aggressively last year to neutralize Trump's tariff escalations. However, no specific commitments on lifting the export controls were announced.
- Both leaders agreed to a “constructive China-U.S. relationship of strategic stability” framework that will guide bilateral relations for the next three years and beyond. Didn't we used to have that? Trump invited Xi to visit the U.S. on September 24, before the October expiration of the current trade truce.
Here's what did not come out of the summit:
- Xi warned Trump that mishandling Taiwan would put U.S.-China relations in “great jeopardy” and called it the “most important” issue in the bilateral relationship, but Trump made “no commitment either way” on stopping U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan. On Iran, both leaders agreed they want the Strait of Hormuz reopened, but no commitments emerged from China on pressuring Tehran to end the war.
- Trump said he didn't discuss tariffs or computer chips. He said aboard Air Force One, “They're paying tariffs, they're paying substantial tariffs, but we didn't discuss.” When asked about computer chips, Trump said it “didn't come up.” Was Trump waiting for Xi to bring up those topics or something? Or was this just like a casual visit where whatever happens happened?
- No movement on de minimis, Shein, or Temu. The status quo still holds, which means every package from China remains subject to a 54% duty or $100 flat fee, and the broader $800 de minimis exemption that previously let small parcels enter the U.S. duty-free remains suspended for all countries.
- Nvidia did not secure Chinese approval to sell its H200 AI chips in China. Trump said Friday that China has opted to “develop their own” chips, which I'm sure will be both cheaper and faster. That statement contradicted his comment earlier that same day, when he said the topic “didn't come up.”
Overall, the consensus from analysts is that this was a “stabilization” trip rather than a breakthrough. The underlying trade war hasn't been resolved and the tariff truce hasn't been formally extended. Still some work to do.
