Trump Arrives Beijing for First Presidential Visit in a Decade
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- Trump traveled to Beijing on Wednesday for a two-day summit with Xi Jinping, marking the first time a U.S. president has set foot on Chinese soil since 2017, according to CBC News.
- The summit, originally scheduled for March 31, was delayed six weeks by the U.S.-Israel war against Iran; Trump is expected to ask Xi to help pressure Iran into reopening the Strait of Hormuz, per the report.
- China is pursuing a "no-alliance, no-interventionist approach" to the Iran conflict and will likely do its persuading behind closed doors rather than publicly joining the U.S. effort, Eurasia Group's Dan Wang told CBC.
- The U.S.-China trade truce was struck in October 2025 after tariffs reached 145% on some Chinese imports, and a likely deliverable this week is China resuming U.S. soybean purchases after a six-month halt in 2025.
- More than a dozen tech and business leaders, including Apple's Tim Cook, Elon Musk, and Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, are traveling with Trump, signaling potential deals in agriculture, energy, and aircraft.
- China holds a near-monopoly on rare-earth processing and has wielded sweeping export controls as leverage, while seeking further easing of U.S. restrictions on advanced AI chips and semiconductors.
- Trump told reporters he expects Xi to raise Taiwan "more than I will," highlighting the issue's sensitivity entering the talks.
Why it matters: Trump needs a visible deliverable from Beijing — likely Chinese soybean purchases and a cooperative tone on Iran — to sustain his "trade truce" narrative with U.S. farmers and markets after a summit that was once postponed by the Middle East war. Xi, meanwhile, holds structural leverage through near-monopoly control of rare-earth processing and the fact that China is Iran's largest oil customer, meaning the optics of hosting the first U.S. presidential visit in nearly a decade may matter more than the concessions on the table.
