President Donald Trump and China's Xi Jinping are set to meet for a highly anticipated summit in Washington. While a robust gathering of US corporate leaders is expected to attend, Xi is not anticipated to bring a comparable delegation of Chinese executives, raising concerns about the potential for new business deals between the two largest economies. This absence of Chinese CEOs suggests a potential difference in expectations for the summit between the two countries, despite Trump's public optimism about securing "a lot of different deals."
Among the prominent US tech executives expected to attend the lavish state dinner are Mark Zuckerberg of Meta Platforms Inc., Jensen Huang of Nvidia Corp., Sam Altman of OpenAI, Satya Nadella of Microsoft Corp., Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com Inc., Tim Cook of Apple Inc., Elon Musk of Tesla Inc., Sundar Pichai of Alphabet Inc., and Michael Dell of Dell Technologies Inc. Financial sector leaders such as Jane Fraser of Citigroup Inc. and Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase & Co., along with Mastercard Inc. CEO Michael Miebach, are also anticipated. Key Trump administration officials, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, will also participate.
Fissures over potential US investments have reportedly contributed to the stalled plans for Chinese business leaders to join Xi's visit. Disagreements between Washington and Beijing regarding a Board of Investment, especially concerning future Chinese investments in the US, have created roadblocks. This contrasts sharply with Xi's 2015 state visit to the US, where he brought a significant business contingent that included Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s Jack Ma and Tencent Holdings Ltd.'s Pony Ma. The current lack of a Chinese business delegation was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
The summit comes amidst a politically challenging period for President Trump, with midterm elections approaching in November that could impact his legislative agenda. Similarly, Xi is nearing an expected fourth term while China's economy faces a slowdown. Tensions between the two nations have been escalating over issues such as artificial intelligence, critical mineral exports, and Taiwan. Earlier in the week, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer indicated that the US and China remain divided on the terms of extending a trade truce.
