Original Title: 8 CEOs on Air Force One just ended the American Power Narrative
Original Author: Mustufa Khan
Translation: Peggy

Editor's Note: During Trump's recent visit to China, aside from the meeting between the Chinese and American leaders, the focus was also on the accompanying list of American corporate executives: Musk, Cook, Huang Renxun, Larry Fink, as well as executives from Boeing, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, Citigroup, and other companies were all part of the delegation.

Why did these CEOs come? The reason is not complicated. Tesla needs the Chinese market and a Shanghai factory, Apple needs to maintain its Chinese supply chain, NVIDIA needs to re-enter the Chinese AI chip market, Boeing is waiting for a large order from China, and Wall Street institutions are concerned about licenses, asset management, and access to the capital markets. They belong to different industries, but all point to the same reality: for many top U.S. companies, China is still an irreplaceable market, production base, and regulatory gatekeeper.

Therefore, what this article truly discusses is not just the grandeur of a diplomatic visit or a few potential deals that may materialize, but rather the structural dependence of American companies on the Chinese market.

The following is the original text:

Yesterday, Trump arrived in Beijing, accompanied by Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Huang Renxun, Larry Fink, and several other top American CEOs. The commercial volume behind this delegation is staggering: these entrepreneurs have a combined net worth of approximately $1.07 trillion, surpassing the GDP of most economies globally, except for a few countries.

The outside world has referred to this visit as a summit.

However, based on the signals released on-site, it resembles more of a global corporate board meeting: China is the chairman hosting the meeting, Trump is one of the directors, and the accompanying U.S. corporate CEOs are like a business team brought to the scene to endorse the final deal.

Over the past 70 years, the core narrative of American power has been repriced. However, many observers are still focusing on formalities, slogans, and short-term transactions, without realizing the structural changes that are taking place.

The brass band on the tarmac, Chinese children in matching outfits, and a series of carefully planned welcome ceremonies can easily be interpreted as routine diplomatic gestures. Yet, what truly matters is not these visuals themselves, but who is setting the pace for this visit.

Nearly every agenda item in the public schedule of this visit was arranged by the Chinese side. This means that China holds the initiative in the agenda, and Trump is more in response to the established agenda rather than actively shaping it. Trump arrives, China receives. This alone is enough to constitute the most significant political and business signal of the week.

A truly leverageable nation typically does not publicly signal its desires before entering the negotiation room; instead, a country with diminishing leverage often compensates for its lack of bargaining chips with a more high-profile public narrative. As the U.S. President arrives in Beijing, accompanied by a cohort of the most influential American corporate CEOs, a list of key agenda items has already been laid out in a press release before his touchdown.

By Friday evening, this visit is likely to yield some tangible outcomes: several Boeing orders, some discreetly advanced chip export licenses, and a number of agricultural and trade commitments. These will all be packaged as diplomatic victories. But what is truly worth noting this week is not these surface-level achievements but rather the composition of the delegation itself.

Take a look at who is on this plane and what each of them needs to obtain from Beijing.

Elon Musk: Shanghai Factory Still Tesla's Lifeline

The Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory started production in 2019. By 2026, this factory has contributed to almost half of Tesla's global car output, with this single site delivering 213,000 vehicles in just the first quarter. Musk's investment in the Shanghai production system runs into the billions, including a $2 billion Gigafactory and a $200 million Megapack storage facility.

The Chinese market accounts for about a quarter of Tesla's revenue. Over the past two years, Musk has repeatedly warned of the risks of authoritarian regimes on the X platform and the inevitable decoupling of the U.S. and China. But this week, he boarded Air Force One headed to Beijing, with one of the key objectives being to ensure the smooth operation of the Shanghai factory.

This is the contradiction Musk must confront: one of the most openly critical figures of China in the U.S. business community, and simultaneously one of the U.S. CEOs most deeply reliant on the Beijing policy environment. This contradiction is no longer just a posture issue in the public opinion arena but a real-life matter that he must personally address in Beijing, in front of Xi Jinping and the cameras.

Tim Cook: The Final China Diplomacy Before the End of Term

Cook is set to retire on September 1, with John Turner taking over as Apple's CEO. For Cook, this trip to China is likely his CEO's final major diplomatic occasion, and at this moment, he must handle the most difficult and thoroughly explainable part of the Apple story.

Over the past five years, Cook has consistently emphasized to Congress, shareholders, and the media that Apple is shifting iPhone production out of China. This claim is not unfounded. Today, the majority of iPhones sold in the U.S. market are assembled in India. Just in May 2025, Foxconn's Indian subsidiary received a $1.5 billion investment.

Diversity is taking place. But the issue lies beyond the U.S. market.

Apple's iPhone, sold to about 200 other countries and regions, still heavily relies on the Chinese assembly system. This means that even though Apple has started to shift some of its supply chain, its global supply system remains deeply intertwined with the Chinese manufacturing network.

This week, Cook sat in a Chinese government building, and what he truly needed to do was not to prove that Apple had detached from China, but to ensure that this incomplete shifted supply chain system could continue to operate stably, at least enough to hand over this issue to the next CEO.

黄仁勋: The Man Trump Personally Called to Board the Plane

Huang Renxun was not originally on the list of the visiting delegation. He had planned to skip this trip because his appearance might trigger a new round of scrutiny within the Republican Party regarding Nvidia's chip sales to China. Early Tuesday morning, Trump personally called Huang Renxun, asking him to join the delegation. Less than 24 hours later, Huang Renxun flew to Alaska and boarded Air Force One.

Trump needed Huang Renxun to be present because of the H200 chip issue.

The Nvidia H200 AI accelerator was banned from selling to China during the Biden administration, then replaced by the performance-diminished H20. However, in April 2025, H20 was once again restricted, leading to Nvidia taking a $5.5 billion write-down. By the end of 2025, Trump approved the re-export of H200 to China and set a 25% tariff levied by U.S. Customs. The Beijing authorities then privately informed customers to pause their purchases.

Although 6 months have passed since the White House clearance, not a single H200 chip has been delivered to Chinese buyers to date. During this period, Nvidia's market share in China plummeted from 95% to nearly 0.

Therefore, Huang Renxun's appearance in Beijing this week was one of the most critical corporate negotiations of the entire visit. He is the only person on both sides of the negotiation table who truly understands the chip boundary: which chips can be sold, which technologies cannot be opened up, how to maintain Chinese market revenue while preventing China from gaining a computing power foundation enough to surpass Nvidia completely.

This figure cannot be negotiated by the Treasury Secretary or even Trump. The person who truly understands the technical boundary and commercial cost is Huang Renxun. In other words, in this negotiation, he is the key player, while the president is more like the person who brought him into the room.

Larry Fink: Overseeing $11 Trillion in Assets, Yet Still Unable to Avoid the China Factor

In 2024, BlackRock's asset under management surpassed $11 trillion and has since continued to grow. Larry Fink's business layout in China has long been at the center of U.S. political controversy.

In 2023, the U.S. House of Representatives' "China Task Force" investigated BlackRock and MSCI, accusing them of directing U.S. investor funds to Chinese companies that were blacklisted due to alleged military or human rights issues.

Subsequently, BlackRock closed its offshore Chinese equity fund, and its China head, Tang Xiaodong, resigned. During the same period, several of BlackRock's onshore China funds also experienced losses.

Fink boarded the plane this week because if BlackRock wants to maintain its status as the world's largest asset manager in 2035, obtaining a license in China is almost an unavoidable path. However, these licenses are held by Beijing.

The same congressional committee that investigated him three years ago is closely monitoring this visit. He must achieve significant results in Beijing to demonstrate the commercial viability of staying in the Chinese market, while also not giving the impression that he is sacrificing U.S. national security interests for market access.

Throughout the entire visit, Fink may face the narrowest of margins.

Kelly Ortberg: Boeing CEO Waiting for Chinese Orders for Nearly a Decade

Since obtaining purchase commitments worth over $37 billion and totaling 300 aircraft during Trump's visit to China in 2017, Boeing has not received any significant orders from China.

Two 737 MAX accidents in 2018 and 2019, the pandemic, the trade war, and Boeing's own long-standing production crisis have collectively led to a nearly decade-long freeze on Chinese orders.

Reportedly, the deal on the negotiating table this week may include 500 737 MAX aircraft and about 100 wide-body aircraft. If finalized, this would become one of the largest single aircraft orders in Boeing's history. Ortberg admitted in an interview with Reuters last month that Boeing is relying on the White House to push through this order, which had previously been somewhat hindered by issues related to engine parts caught up in a tariff dispute.

In the first four months of 2026, Boeing received 284 net orders, marking its strongest start to a year since 2014. However, the company's production capacity and delivery pace remain under pressure.

While a massive Chinese order may not immediately alter Boeing's 2026 performance outlook, it is enough to rejuvenate market confidence in the company's stock value and provide Ortberg with the long-awaited operational validation the board is expecting. The reason he is on this plane is that Boeing has been waiting for 9 years and cannot return empty-handed.

David Solomon: Guardian of Goldman Sachs' Wholly-Owned China Business

Goldman Sachs acquired full ownership of its China securities business in 2021, becoming one of the few U.S. financial institutions to have full ownership of an onshore securities business in China.

For Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, the core objective of this Beijing trip is to ensure that this license continues to have tangible commercial value. Over the past three years, China has continuously tightened its regulatory environment for foreign financial institutions, making the growth prospects for foreign banks in onshore investment banking, asset management, and wealth management more uncertain.

The onshore investment banking, asset management, and wealth management business serving Chinese clients are important areas for Goldman Sachs' long-term revenue growth. If Beijing decides that foreign banks are no longer suited to enter key sectors, then Goldman Sachs' strategic path built around the Chinese market over the past 15 years will face reassessment.

What Solomon needs to ensure in Beijing this week is that this reassessment does not happen.

Su Shimin: A Business Politician Connecting Washington and Beijing for 20 Years

Su Shimin is one of the most senior business political figures in the delegation. In the first quarter of 2026, Blackstone's assets under management surpassed $13 trillion, making it the first alternative asset management firm to reach this scale.

He founded the Su Shimin School at Tsinghua University in Beijing, attempting to cultivate bridge-building leaders between China and the U.S. Over the years, Su Shimin has openly advocated that the future of China-U.S. relations is more likely to evolve into a scenario of "coexistence within spheres of influence" rather than outright confrontation.

He has spent 20 years nurturing relationships with senior Chinese leaders, a resource that most other members of the delegation do not possess.

The value of Su Shimin's trip lies not in what he can directly obtain from Beijing, but in his ability to privately inform Trump: how Xi Jinping is likely to interpret the on-site atmosphere, which concessions are possible, and under what conditions neither side would lose face.

In a sense, he is the member of the U.S. delegation closest to a "Kissingerian figure." More importantly, he is the only one on this plane who has long viewed the China-U.S. relationship as an investment proposition rather than a quarterly issue to be handled.

Jane Fraser: Citigroup CEO Still Awaiting a Chinese License

Citigroup has exited its early joint ventures in China and has been waiting for Beijing to approve its full ownership securities brokerage license. However, this application has yet to materialize.

Meanwhile, Citigroup is also embroiled in a dispute with a Zhejiang fuel company. Fraser's presence on this trip is because Citigroup's onshore China strategy is still stuck at the gate, and she needs Chinese regulatory authorities to advance this long-pending license application.

In the current geopolitical standoff between the U.S. and China, Citigroup is one of the most squeezed American financial institutions. Mastercard, Visa, and Citigroup are all vying for payment and capital market access, which is still controlled by Beijing.

Among several major financial institution CEOs, Fraser has the least leverage at the negotiation table, but her demands may be the greatest.

Other Companies on the Plane

The delegation also includes executives from Meta, Mastercard, Visa, Micron, Illumina, Cargill, Coherent, and GE Aerospace. They each face different issues, but the underlying logic is highly similar: all to some extent rely on market access, licenses, supply chains, or regulatory resources controlled by Beijing.

Mastercard and Visa seek payment access. Micron hopes to lift storage chip export restrictions. Illumina has been placed on China's "unreliable entity" list. Cargill needs Chinese soybean orders. GE Aerospace provides engines for Boeing planes potentially purchased by China.

These companies are part of the delegation because Beijing controls certain key resources that will be hard for them to replace in the next five years.

Main Theme: U.S. Corporations' Dependence on China

8 CEOs, each representing 8 different forms of reliance on China.

Each of them boarded Air Force One this week because their respective companies have developed a high degree of reliance on the Chinese market or supply chain over the past few decades. For these companies, Chinese market access, regulatory approvals, manufacturing systems, order commitments, and policy signals are no longer just growth options but increasingly approaching strategic imperatives.

And the person holding these keys is the very person they flew halfway around the world to meet.

Since around 2010, the U.S. corporate elite has been constructing a narrative for themselves: they seem to operate above ordinary political governance frictions. Founders speak directly to users, boards often endorse CEOs' decisions, and regulators are always playing catch-up with already distorted business models.

Many domestic institutions in the U.S. have tried to challenge this narrative, but with limited success.

Over the past 20 years, the Senate has repeatedly summoned these CEOs, but rarely have them all sat at the same table on the same day. Antitrust investigations often last for years, by which time the technology cycle has already turned over. Many Americans watch the hearings on YouTube but struggle to identify which legislation eventually emerged from these hearings to truly change the industry landscape.

But Beijing achieved something else: It made these American corporate leaders fly over half the globe, sit at the same meeting table in China's agenda, in China's cities, and under China's protocol.

This is the truly alarming part of this week. The leverage to convene the American power structure is no longer solely within the U.S. political system. At least in this moment, it resides in Beijing and is being openly displayed.

By 2026, the most constraining force on U.S. corporate behavior may no longer be just Washington's congressional hearings, judicial investigations, or regulatory agencies, but the market exclusion power held by China's regulatory state.

This leverage is simple and effective: market access, or loss of market access.

After the Summit, Real Change Will Not Be Captured in a Joint Statement

This visit will conclude on Friday. At that time, the two sides will likely issue a joint statement and announce specific outcomes regarding Boeing orders, agricultural purchases, and some industrial cooperation.

American media may interpret these results as evidence of pragmatic engagement; Chinese media may see it as proof of China's maintaining a central position in the global economy. Both narratives will not be entirely incorrect, but they may overlook the structural changes truly revealed this week.

What truly matters is that the American corporate leadership has openly acknowledged that an increasing amount of key decisions affecting their revenue and growth trajectory over the next decade are happening in a room presided over by Xi Jinping.

The CEOs on Air Force One are the first concentrated display of this pattern. In the future, any American company that still hopes to access the Chinese market will likely have to come to Beijing in a similar manner and accept similar conditions.

The scenes on the tarmac are not just a demonstration of American power. They show who has the ability to convene American power and make it cross the Pacific when needed.

While Washington is still explaining why such a power shift could never happen, the leverage has quietly moved.

Whether the outside world is willing to acknowledge it or not, the new boardroom is in Beijing.

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