U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (bottom C), U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (bottom centre R), Secretary of State Marco Rubio (bottom 2nd R), Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (second row R), senior advisor Stephen Miller (bottom L), Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk (3rd R second row) and Apple CEO Tim Cook (C second row) attend a welcome ceremony for U.S. President Donald Trump in Beijing on May 14, 2026. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
Commentary
President Trump’s trip to China last week was essentially a super “Chamber of Commerce” summit. In addition to cabinet members like Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, President Trump invited key business leaders like Apple’s Tim Cook, Tesla’s Elon Musk, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, and CEOs of a dozen more firms, including Cristiano Amon (Qualcomm), Sanjay Mehrotra (Micron), and Kelly Ortberg (Boeing). They didn’t go to China just for photo-ops or PR, but primarily to cut some business deals with China.
