Trump landed in Beijing aboard Air Force One around 7:50 p.m. local time on May 13 for his first state visit to China since 2017. He is accompanied by Tim Cook (Apple, in his final major diplomatic appearance before stepping down as CEO), Elon Musk (Tesla), Jensen Huang (Nvidia, added at the last minute over aide objections), Larry Fink (BlackRock), Kelly Ortberg (Boeing), Dina Powell McCormick (Meta), and Visa CEO Ryan McInerney. The agenda: trade, tariffs, rare earths, AI/semiconductors, Taiwan, the Iran war. The trip was postponed from April because of the Iran war.

1. The Dealmaker Goes To Beijing (Trump, CEO entourage, transactional case)

A planeload of US CEOs, a list of trade deals, and a Chinese commitment to buy American goods is what engagement with the world's second-largest economy looks like.

A delegation that includes Cook, Musk, Huang, Fink, Ortberg, and Visa is not a courtesy call — it is a sales trip. Expected deliverables include the completion of a long-delayed deal for China to buy up to 500 Boeing 737 MAX jets, plus purchase commitments on US agricultural exports — soybeans, beef, other commodities. From the administration's view, this is the kind of country-scale dealmaking the CEO entourage is built to deliver, and the kind no previous administration's diplomatic-only delegations managed.

Trump has publicly entertained the bigger piece: $1 trillion in Chinese investment in US factories. China reportedly offered the deal in October 2025 in exchange for tariff relief and rolled-back national-security restrictions on Chinese deals. Trump's pitch to the Detroit Economic Club in January was open: "If they want to come in and build the plant and hire you and hire your friends and your neighbors, that's great."

Iran is not an issue. Speaking to reporters before departure, Trump said: "I don't think we need any help with Iran." He declared the US will win the war "one way or the other." Asked about the trip overall, he called it "a wild one." That is the position from which a self-styled dealmaker negotiates: claim leverage you don't fully need, then trade what you do.

2. China Has The Better Hand (CFR realists, Bloomberg, analysts)

An Iran war that has tanked Trump's approval and disrupted Hormuz is a war China can help end — and won't, unless it gets something extremely valuable on AI chips, Taiwan, or technology.

The structural arithmetic of the summit favors Beijing. Council on Foreign Relations published its summit assessment under the title "At the Trump-Xi Summit, China Will Have the Upper Hand." Bloomberg's framing was sharper: "Trump Faces Emboldened Xi in China as Iran War Clips US Leverage." The structural read from this camp is that Trump's domestic political pressure — an Iran war he didn't end at the bargaining table, gas prices that have spiked since the war began — has weakened his ability to walk away from a bad deal in Beijing.

Beijing's Iran leverage is real. China is Iran's largest trade partner and the top buyer of its oil. Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have publicly called on China to use its ties with Iran to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. From this camp's view, Trump's "don't need any help" line is a public face on a private ask. And China will not lift a finger on Hormuz without something extremely valuable in return — possibly loosened AI-chip export controls or advanced chip-making equipment.

Beijing's list is long. China wants to extend the current trade truce; ease sanctions and technology restrictions; secure assurances the US will pull back on arms sales to Taiwan; roll back semiconductor export controls. And on rare earths — critical for US semiconductor manufacturing — China holds the export-control card that inflamed tensions last year. The summit ledger, in this view, has the US asking for things China can deliver, and China asking for things the US has already promised not to give up.

3. This Is Selling Us Out (MAGA / America First wing)

Trump campaigned against China and is now flying to Beijing with the Nvidia CEO and entertaining $1 trillion in Chinese factories on American soil — that is the opposite of America First.

The MAGA-wing alarm broke into the open before the wheels left Washington. Marjorie Taylor Greene called the potential $1T deal "shocking" on X on Monday: "So much so that China may be allowed to build $1 Trillion in factories in the U.S. probably in exchange for help with Iran." Fox News' Laura Ingraham posted the report with two exclamation marks, quoting headline reporting that Trump was "on verge of making massive error — against aides' advice."

The substance of the concern is national-security architecture. Chinese factories on US soil, in this camp's view, are not neutral foreign investment, and rolled-back AI-chip export controls would hand Beijing the kind of technology US policy spent years trying to keep out of its hands. The MAGA position is that the trade-off Trump appears willing to entertain — Chinese investment for Chinese help on Iran — is exactly the kind of strategic accommodation his coalition was built to reject.

The Huang invitation is the tell. Trump personally called Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang during the Air Force One stopover in Alaska, overriding aide objections to put him on the plane to Beijing. Nvidia sits at the center of US AI-chip export-control disputes with China; including its CEO in the delegation is a signal that chip access is part of what's on the table, whatever the administration says publicly. From this camp's view, that is the deal MTG, Ingraham, and the broader America First wing are flagging before it gets signed.

Where This Lands

A long-delayed Boeing deal, agricultural purchases, and even a partial Chinese-investment package would be meaningful US wins, and engagement with the world's second-largest economy on a 48-hour clock is what summit diplomacy is supposed to do. On the other hand, the structural arithmetic is also real: Trump arrives needing Chinese pressure on Iran more than China needs anything Trump can credibly offer, and the things on Beijing's wishlist — chip exports, Taiwan, rare-earths leverage — are the things US national-security policy spent the last decade trying to keep off the table.

Sources