At the Summit meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, both leaders agreed to establish a “constructive strategic and stable relationship” between China and the U.S. They will also establish a Trade Council and an Investment Council and “agreed in principle to lower tariffs on products of respective concern on a comparable scale”. President Trump said the two countries have “made some fantastic trade deals, great for both countries.”
A large business delegation of 18 chief executives accompanied Trump to Beijing, where he commented: “I didn’t want the second or the third in the company. I wanted only the top, and they’re here today to pay respects to you [Xi] and to China”. CEOs from big American conglomerates, including Tesla's Elon Musk, Apple's Tim Cook, Blackrock's Larry Fink, Boeing's Kelly Ortberg, Blackstone's Stephen Schwarzman, Cargill’s Brian Sikes, Meta’s Dina Powell McCormick, Visa’s Ryan McInerney, Citi’s Jane Fraser, GE Aerospace’s Larry Culp, Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon, Mastercard’s Michael Miebach and Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon joined Trump's delegation to China, as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang joined the delegation at the last minute, boarding Air Force One during a refueling stop in Anchorage, Alaska. The executives had meetings with the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT).
MOFCOM confirmed that it had reached an agreement to purchase airplanes, jet engines and components from the U.S. Trump said China would buy at least 200 Boeing aircraft and possibly up to 750, and 450 engines from General Electric. Boeing said in a statement: “We had a very successful trip to China and accomplished our major goal of reopening the China market to orders for Boeing aircraft.” If the purchase of 200 Boeing aircraft is finalized, it would be the company’s largest order from China since the USD37 billion deal for 300 aircraft reached during Trump’s 2017 visit. After 2017, China suspended major orders amid rising tensions with the U.S. over trade, technology and other issues.
China granted five-year export licenses to 77 U.S. beef facilities, while renewing expired licenses of 425 other plants for another five years, which appears to be a marginal addition after factoring in previous commitments, analysts said, adding that new orders could reduce China’s reliance on Brazil for soybeans and other agricultural products. Last year, Brazil accounted for over 70% of China’s total soybean imports. Under a measure Beijing announced in December, beef shipments from Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and the United States that exceed fixed country-by-country caps in 2026 will face a 55% tariff, up from the standard 12%.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said that he expects to see China buy a 10-figure sum in agricultural products annually over the next three years, but most of this estimate appears to be based on earlier soybean purchase agreements. China had already agreed to buy at least 25 million tons of soybeans annually from the U.S. from 2026 to 2028 following Trump and Xi’s meeting in Busan, South Korea last autumn. New purchases of products aside from soybeans would be incremental.
“Beijing will not accept purchase demands exceeding its actual needs or driven purely by political motives,” said Lin Shen, Researcher with the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). The new agreement, the details of which have yet to be confirmed, is expected to reflect China’s need to maintain a balance between imports and low domestic prices. On other high-profile products such as beef, “China will exercise restraint, because more imports would further pressure the domestic market,” Zhang Zhixian, head of research at Cngrain.com, said. Shipments of U.S. beef and related products to China fell about 67% between 2024 and 2025. Because of this, the US had not used a large share of its quota allocation. Brazil shipped a record 119,630 tons of beef to China in January alone, and more than 40% of the annual ceiling was consumed in the first quarter
Data released in November by the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. showed that more than 80,000 U.S. companies have invested in China, while 7,000 Chinese firms operate in the U.S.
Some commentators stressed that the deliverables of the meeting were poor, but Rush Doshi, Director at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and former China Adviser during the Biden Administration, said “the meeting was the deliverable”. “The summit reduced near-term escalation risk,” said Zoe Liu, Senior CFR fellow. “But it doesn’t really remove the structural risks that matter most.”
This overview is based on reports by the China Daily, Global Times and South China Morning Post.
