He’s traveling with a group of important CEOs from American companies. Nvidia, Apple and Boeing are sending their leaders to the meeting, where AI policies, exporting computer chips and a possible purchase of Boeing planes will likely be the main topics.
Why CEOs are on the plane
The administration has asked the leaders of Nvidia, Apple, Exxon and Boeing to go on the trip, along with people from Qualcomm, Blackstone, Citigroup and Visa. Having so many different kinds of businesses involved suggests they’ll be negotiating about a lot of things – controlling technology, what industries are buying, and financial connections.
Nvidia is right in the middle of the debate over chips. Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s CEO, recently said Nvidia isn’t selling anything in China at the moment. Last year, Nvidia made $19.67 billion from China (including Hong Kong), but they don’t think they’ll make any money from China in the first three months of this year.
How easily companies can export things to China is still a problem. The U.S. has gone back and forth between allowing Nvidia and AMD (another chip company) to sell advanced processors to China and stopping them. Trump said he would allow some of Nvidia’s H200 chips to go to China, but Howard Lutnick at the Commerce Department said that hasn’t happened yet.
Washington is restricting these sales because it’s worried that very high-quality semiconductors could be used to develop the military, including AI systems that could be used against the U.S. Huang thinks it’s a better strategy to let China buy American chips than to force China to make their own AI computer parts. This trip might make the U.S. position on this clearer.
Boeing’s long-awaited China reset
Boeing has a very pressing and specific need. People in the industry say China and Boeing have been talking for a long time about China buying 500 of Boeing’s 737 MAX planes and dozens of larger, widebody planes. This would be China’s first significant order from Boeing since 2017.
Boeing’s CEO Kelly Ortberg said in April that the company is relying on the government to help make this long-delayed deal happen. If an agreement is made, it will be a big success for the meeting and will help Boeing sell planes again as the airline industry slowly gets healthier.
Who is invited and what that signals
Leaders from Nvidia, Apple, Exxon and Boeing have been invited on the trip, and Qualcomm, Blackstone, Citigroup and Visa executives are also going. Qualcomm said they received the invitation but won’t say more. Some companies didn’t want to say anything, and others didn’t get back to people right away.
The mix of companies shows a coordinated plan: advanced computers are linked to supply chains, the ability to fly (aviation) is linked to funding, energy plans are linked to payment systems. Although the people going have their own specific goals, what they want is in line with the main aims of the meeting.
The trip concentrates attention on three flashpoints:
– AI and advanced chip exports
– A potential multiyear Boeing purchase
– Commercial openings for US firms in China
What the policy debate could settle
Discussions will include artificial intelligence, as expected. Right now, the main question is whether the U.S. will say exactly which powerful chips can be sent to China and under what rules, since the rules and decisions have been changing and have been made on a case-by-case basis.
Another important thing is how confident businesses are. Nvidia has permission to ship H200 chips to China, but hasn’t made any money from those sales. Apple, Exxon and financial companies have their own issues with getting into the Chinese market when the world economy isn’t growing quickly, so being able to predict what the rules will be is as important as any particular deal.
What comes next
The meeting could open up new ways to work together at an advanced level and create new business opportunities. For Boeing, a large order would fix years of problems with business in China. For Nvidia and similar companies, a clear plan for exports could turn a zero percentage of the market into a way to start selling again, with some rules.
What happens next depends on decisions made by the leaders. But because the top people from American tech and business are going, it’s more likely that there will be announcements about both the political relationship between the countries and how much money the companies will make.
