Trump aides envision presidential trip to China with CEOs in tow
One opportunity for the trip will be in late October, when the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit will be held in South Korea.
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump's administration is reaching out to business executives to weigh interest in accompanying him on a possible trip to China in 2025, according to people familiar with the matter, highlighting the potential for strengthening ties between the economies even as the US signals its desire to decouple from Beijing.
The Commerce Department is making calls to gauge interest from chief executives at some US companies, said the people, who were granted anonymity because the discussions are private. It is unclear how many company leaders have been asked to participate or whether any have confirmed.
One opportunity for the trip will be in late October, when the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit will be held in South Korea back-to-back with another leaders' summit in Malaysia hosted by the Association of South-east Asian Nations, some of the people said. The American president typically attends both of them.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that a visit to China has not been scheduled at this point when asked for comment. The Commerce Department declined to comment.
It is also not yet certain that Mr Trump will make the trip to China at all, the people said, as the idea faces opposition within an administration that is stacked with China hawks who favour a tougher stance against Beijing.
The early outreach, though, highlights how Mr Trump has sought to use his presidency to secure deals for American companies and new markets for American products, even as his tariff agenda rankles allies and unnerves financial markets.
On his first major trip abroad in 2025, he visited the Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates flanked by top executives from the worlds of finance, technology and manufacturing, announced billions in new deals spanning energy, artificial intelligence, chips, aerospace, sports and other sectors in a display of US corporate might.
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Among those joining Mr Trump on that whirlwind tour were BlackRock's Larry Fink, Boeing's Kelly Ortberg, Alex Karp of Palantir Technologies and Nvidia's Jensen Huang, among others.
US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is envisioning a similar lineup for the possible Beijing trip, where investment and purchasing deals could be announced by Mr Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping and the travelling executives, the people said.
Mr Trump and Mr Xi last spoke in early June, after which Mr Trump announced that his Chinese counterpart had 'graciously invited the First Lady and me to visit China, and I reciprocated'.
'As Presidents of two Great Nations, this is something that we both look forward to doing,' Mr Trump said at the time in a post on Truth Social.
The June call between Mr Trump and Mr Xi was cast as critical to easing tensions between the world's two largest economies after they exchanged crippling tariffs in 2025 that threatened to choke off trade.
Yet that framework is far from comprehensive, with many thorny questions between the two superpowers still unresolved, such as the issue of fentanyl trafficking and American exporters' access to Chinese markets.
Another potential stumbling block in US-China relations is the status of the
popular social media app TikTok.
Mr Trump is keen to finalise a deal for the divestiture of its American operations from Chinese parent company Bytedance. But securing that transaction, appears to be a final obstacle, according to the people.
Any divestiture deal would require Beijing's sign-off, giving the country a source of leverage to potentially extract concessions from the US on trade and other issues.
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