Business leaders join Trump in Beijing as U.S.-China tensions persist

Trump arrived in Beijing with more than one dozen CEOs and top executives in tow, turning a high-stakes summit into a test of how far U.S. business will go to keep China open. The delegation included leaders from Nvidia, Apple, Exxon, Boeing, Qualcomm, Blackstone, Citigroup and Visa, a roster that showed how deeply major American companies remain exposed to the Chinese market despite years of trade friction.

The trip marked the first visit by a U.S. president to China in nearly a decade, with a bilateral meeting with Xi Jinping scheduled for May 14 and 15. Tariffs, rare earths, artificial intelligence, manufacturing access and technology regulation were expected to dominate the talks, with Trump pressing China to “open up” to American firms. The business presence gave that message extra weight, but it also exposed the calculations executives are making: they are betting that commercial access is still worth the political and regulatory risk.

Those risks are not theoretical. The State Department said China remained one of the world’s most closed major economies, and foreign investment in China fell 27.1 percent in 2024 to $114.8 billion. That decline matters for U.S. companies because it shows both the scale of the opportunity and the barriers that remain. For chipmakers, consumer brands, banks, aerospace firms and payment companies, China is still too large to ignore and too restricted to treat like an ordinary market.

Washington has not abandoned pressure of its own. The U.S. Trade Representative lists a November 4, 2025 executive order modifying reciprocal tariff rates under a U.S.-China trade arrangement, and later extended 178 China Section 301 exclusions until November 10, 2026. That mix of tariffs and targeted relief captures the current state of the relationship: confrontation remains the default, but carve-outs and negotiations still matter when supply chains, exports and market access are at stake.

The broader backdrop is even more telling. The U.S. government has sharpened its focus on critical minerals and supply chains, areas where China’s leverage remains central to every major trade discussion. The Beijing trip underscored the gap between political rhetoric about decoupling and the reality of corporate dependence. For all the talk of hard lines, the companies at Trump’s side made clear that U.S.-China economic ties are still too valuable, and too strategic, to sever cleanly.