Xi to Bring Large CEO Delegation to Washington Summit — SkimNews
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- Xi Jinping is preparing a large business delegation for his September 24 Washington summit, Reuters reported — an unusual move given U.S. scepticism toward Chinese investment and Beijing's strained ties with private enterprise after the 2020 regulatory crackdowns on tech, education and property.
- Xi last brought a sizeable U.S. business contingent in 2015, including Alibaba's Jack Ma, Tencent's Pony Ma and Chinese bank/state-firm executives; that visit produced a $38 billion order for 300 Boeing aircraft.
- Trump travelled to China in May with 18 American executives including Nvidia's Jensen Huang and Elon Musk, but CSIS's Scott Kennedy said that delegation was assembled at short notice and the executives were "more wallflowers than serious participants."
- The Board of Investment, one of two trade-and-investment mechanisms announced in May, is unlikely to produce significant deliverables at the summit because of the challenging U.S. environment for Chinese investment, three sources briefed on the matter said.
- U.S. priorities include reaching an agreement on the Board of Trade — with about 10 categories of "non-sensitive" goods under discussion — and securing more rare earth export licenses for U.S. companies, while Beijing has pressed for reciprocal tariff reductions covering $30 billion in products.
- U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said both countries will make "some announcements on agriculture and non-tariff barriers" during the summit, without providing specifics; Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Greer and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng will meet in early September to discuss deliverables.
- Recent U.S. measures targeting Chinese business include a 100% tariff on imported Chinese EVs, bans on foreign drone, router and robot imports, the forced divestiture of TikTok's U.S. operations, and Entity List and Pentagon blacklisting of major Chinese tech firms.
Why it matters: The CEO contingent inverts the usual pattern of U.S. presidents travelling to Beijing with business leaders and is aimed at producing tangible economic wins for the White House ahead of November midterm elections — but three briefed sources say the Board of Investment will likely produce no significant deliverables, capping the summit's substantive upside even as both sides trade gestures on agriculture, non-tariff barriers and a potential $30 billion in reciprocal tariff cuts.
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