Trump was widely expected to urge China to press Tehran into a deal with Washington to help end the conflict
News Desk
BEIJING/SEOUL: President Donald Trump arrived in Beijing on Wednesday accompanied by senior business figures, including Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang and Tesla boss Elon Musk, as he prepared for a two-day summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping aimed at easing trade tensions and securing economic concessions.
The visit, the first by a US president to China in nearly a decade, was framed by the White House as an opportunity to revive strained commercial ties, push for greater market access for American firms and stabilize a fragile trade truce between the world’s two largest economies.
Trump, writing on his Truth Social platform, said he intended to press Xi to “open up” China to US business, adding that it would be his “very first request” during talks with what he described as a “leader of extraordinary distinction”. The delegation of chief executives travelling with Trump was largely drawn from sectors with significant exposure to Chinese regulation and supply chains.
Among them, Nvidia has been seeking regulatory clearance to sell its advanced H200 artificial intelligence chips in China, a deal that remains stalled amid tightening technology controls between Washington and Beijing. According to a source familiar with the arrangements, Huang was invited at short notice to join the trip and was later seen boarding Air Force One during a refueling stop in Alaska.
Chinese officials responded cautiously but signaled openness to dialogue. A foreign ministry spokesperson, Guo Jiakun, said Beijing stood ready to “expand cooperation, manage differences and inject more stability and certainty into the turbulent world”, reflecting an attempt to balance economic pragmatism with ongoing strategic rivalry.
The visit was preceded by preparatory talks in South Korea between US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, which both sides described as “candid, in-depth and constructive”, although no substantive details were released. The discussions were part of efforts to preserve a trade truce agreed last year, under which the US suspended steep tariffs on Chinese imports while Beijing eased restrictions on rare earth exports.
