By Kemi Osukoya | GEOECONOMICS
President Donald Trump arrived in Beijing on Wednesday carrying a familiar geopolitical argument and an equally familiar commercial pitch: America’s rivals should not become nuclear powers, and American business should be part of the solution that follows.
Nearly nine years after Trump’s first state visit to China centered on containing North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, the president returned to Beijing with another nuclear crisis dominating the agenda—this time Iran, while once again surrounding himself with some of America’s most influential corporate leaders in a bid to deepen commercial ties with China.
The parallel is hard to miss. Trump’s 2017 trip to Beijing was framed around persuading President Xi Jinping to increase pressure on Pyongyang as Washington sought to prevent North Korea from becoming a fully entrenched nuclear state. This week, Trump is looking to enlist Beijing’s help in managing Iran, whose threat to regional and global energy flows and nuclear ambitions have become central to the Administration’s foreign policy calculations.
But as in 2017, geopolitics is arriving alongside commerce.
In a late-night post on Truth Social while en route to China, Trump signaled that market access for American companies would top his economic agenda with Xi.
“It is an honor to have Jensen [Huang of Nvidia], Elon [Musk], Tim[ Cook], Larry Fink, Stephen Schwarzman, Kelly Ortberg (Boeing), Brian Sikes (Cargill), Jane Fraser (Citi), Larry Culp (GE Aerospace), David Solomon (Goldman Sachs), Sanjay Mehrotra (Micron), Cristiano Amon (Qualcomm), and many others journeying to the great country of China where I will be asking President Xi…to ‘open up’ China,” Trump wrote. “I will make that my very first request.”
The unusually large contingent of American top business executives accompanying the president underscored how deeply economic diplomacy remains intertwined with U.S.-China strategic competition, even as tensions over trade, Taiwan and Iran continue to strain relations between the world’s two largest economies.
Trump landed in Beijing at 7:50 p.m. local time and was greeted by Chinese Vice President Han Zheng alongside U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue, Chinese Ambassador Xie Feng and Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu. Hundreds of Chinese youths, a military band and an honor guard lined a red-carpet ceremony at the foot of Air Force One, while American and Chinese flags decorated sections of the capital as Trump’s presidential motorcade traveled into the city center.
Before departing Washington, Trump told reporters he expected Iran to dominate his discussions with Xi.
“I think number one, we’re going to have a long talk,” Trump said. “He’s been relatively good, to be honest. Look at the blockade, no problem. They got a lot of their oil from that area. We’ve had no problem.”
The president framed the Iran conflict in stark national security terms, repeatedly arguing that economic considerations were secondary to preventing Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
“The only thing that matters when I’m talking about Iran, they can’t have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said before leaving the White House. “We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all.”
Over the past months, the Administration has ramped up pressures on Iran by sanctioning several individuals and organizations believed to have connections to the Iranian regime.
The Administration is also betting that Beijing’s leverage over Tehran could prove economically consequential far beyond the Middle East. China remains Iran’s largest oil customer and, alongside Russia, one of the few major powers with meaningful influence over the Iranian leadership.
Washington hopes Beijing could help pressure Tehran into accepting U.S.-backed terms aimed at stabilizing the region and reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow shipping corridor through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply passes. Any sustained disruption there risks reigniting inflationary pressures globally and complicating central bank efforts to stabilize growth.
Trump argued that resolving the conflict could ultimately lower energy prices and strengthen the U.S. economy.
“When it’s over, you’re going to have a massive drop in the price of oil,” he said when asked about the war impact on Americans’ wallets.
The visit comes at a delicate moment for both governments. China’s economy continues to struggle with weak domestic consumption and a prolonged property sector downturn, while the United States is navigating persistent trade frictions with Beijing and growing geopolitical rivalry across Asia.
Xi, meanwhile, has criticized the U.S. position on the Iran war, warning against selectively applying international law and cautioning against what he described as a return to “the law of the jungle.”
Yet despite the tensions, neither side appears eager for a deeper rupture.
Ahead of Trump’s arrival, U.S. economic officials led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent held two days of meetings on May 12-13 with Chinese counterparts to narrow differences before the leaders’ talks.
Trump is expected to press Xi to reduce barriers for American firms operating in China, reviving a core objective from his first presidency. During Trump’s 2017 visit, the two countries announced more than $250 billion in commercial agreements and cooperation pledges, though the goodwill quickly unraveled as trade tensions escalated the following year, then followed by the emergence of the COVID 19 virus and health crisis in 2019.
This time, the White House is again arguing that American capital, technology and corporate expertise could help support China’s slowing economy if Beijing grants U.S. companies broader access.
The symbolism of the trip reflects the enduring structure of the U.S.-China relationship under Trump: strategic rivalry managed alongside commercial interdependence. In both 2017 and now, nuclear diplomacy provided the geopolitical backdrop, while business remained the connective tissue.
Though the geopolitical actors may have shifted—from North Korea to Iran, from Kim Jong Un to the Strait of Hormuz, the formula remains strikingly similar: use presidential diplomacy to reduce a global security threat while positioning American corporations to benefit from any resulting stability.
Unlike in 2017, however, First Lady Melania Trump did not accompany the president on the trip.
