Trade truce extension expected to dominate summit agenda
WASHINGTON — Chinese leader Xi Jinping is unlikely to bring a delegation of corporate executives when he meets President Trump in Washington later this week, according to people familiar with the matter, lowering expectations for significant business deals from the leaders’ first face-to-face in the U.S. capital in more than a decade. The expected focus is on maintaining the trade status quo — extending a truce and lowering some tariffs — rather than announcing fresh commercial agreements.
Some industry officials informed about Xi’s U.S. trip had expected China to assemble a delegation of top executives to join the Chinese leader, the people familiar said. They had expected the Chinese executives to attend a state dinner hosted by Trump on Thursday alongside top U.S. CEOs from technology and artificial-intelligence companies, the people said. Preparations for Xi’s visit are ongoing, and the plans could change.
The likely absence of a Chinese corporate cohort highlights low expectations for significant business results from the meeting between the leaders of the world’s two biggest economies. Political tensions have limited the ability of large Chinese companies to invest in U.S. production, normally a major topic when foreign chief executives visit Washington.
The Chinese Embassy in the U.S., as well as the White House, Treasury Department, Commerce Department and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, did not respond to requests for comment.
Trade is expected to dominate the discussions. Four months after Trump visited Beijing, the two countries are likely to focus on maintaining the status quo on trade — extending the truce the leaders agreed in South Korea in October 2025, lowering tariffs for some nonsensitive goods, and making incremental steps on the Board of Trade and tariff reductions.
“We now have working procedures set up, we have terms of reference, we’re actually going through and we’re picking a relatively small subset of goods where America and China agree we should be trading,” Greer said Monday on Fox News, referring to the Board of Trade plan.
Relations between Washington and Beijing have been strained in recent years by U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods, American restrictions on advanced-chip exports, and Chinese limits on rare-earth-magnet exports that U.S. industry considers crucial. Trump and Xi agreed during their South Korea meeting to establish bilateral boards of trade and investment. When Trump visited Beijing in May, U.S. executives such as Tesla’s Elon Musk and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang joined him on the trip.
The Washington summit will be heavy on pageantry even if light on commercial substance. In an unusual move, Trump is set to personally welcome Xi at Joint Base Andrews when the Chinese leader lands; when Trump visited Beijing in May, Xi dispatched a subordinate to greet Trump at the airport. On Thursday, Trump is set to host a state arrival ceremony for Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, featuring 479 military personnel, according to a statement from the first lady’s office.
Trump said last week that the state dinner would be held in “a very little room,” lamenting that the White House ballroom he wants built is not yet ready. “I literally could tell you that thousands of people would love to be at that dinner,” Trump said.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss artificial intelligence and rare earths, a senior U.S. official said. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that Washington and Beijing were discussing ways to warn each other about AI incidents with national-security implications.
In 2015, when Xi made a previous state visit to the U.S., executives from China’s biggest tech firms joined him in Washington state and met American counterparts.