This is not a good sign. As did UK Premier Keir Starmer back in January, President Trump is hauling a string of company executives with him as he makes the pilgrimage to Beijing to do a deal, or many deals, with Xi Jinping (May 11, 2026).
President Donald Trump has invited executives from some of the biggest U.S. companies—including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Apple CEO Tim Cook, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg—to join his trip to China this week, according to a White House official.
Also expected to join Trump’s delegation for meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping are Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman, Cargill’s Brian Sikes, Citigroup’s Jane Fraser, Coherent’s Jim Anderson, GE Aerospace’s H. Lawrence Culp Jr., Goldman Sachs’s David Solomon, Illumina’s Jacob Thaysen, Mastercard’s Michael Miebach, Meta Platforms executive Dina Powell McCormick, Micron Technology’s Sanjay Mehrotra, Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon and Visa’s Ryan McInerney, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the list has not been announced.
A spokesperson for Cisco said CEO Chuck Robbins had been invited by the White House to join the trip but is unable to attend due to the company’s earnings schedule.
[Trump] has said he hopes to secure a series of business deals and purchase agreements with Beijing.
Maybe Robbins is busy with his company. Maybe he is also ashamed of or anyway doesn’t want to do anything to call further attention to his company’s role in helping build the PRC’s persecution-facilitating surveillance systems. Whether Cisco can be held accountable for that assistance is a question now before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Almost all of the companies listed are already heavily involved with the Chinese economy, helping the Chinese government operate its tyranny; some, like Apple, more directly than others. Obviously, the executives are not going to be on hand in order to help President Trump prevent further “win-win” economic arrangements that advance the power, wealth, and goals of the CCP at the expense of the United States.
One odd man out may be the BlackRock CEO. It was BlackRock that seemed to clinch a deal last year to take control of Panama Canal ports, among other ports, from CK Hutchison Holdings, a conglomerate based in Hong Kong; which would have dealt a blow to Beijing. The blow was instead dealt by the government of Panama. After the Chinese government sought to block the sale to BlackRock, Panama’s Supreme Court ruled that Hutchison’s port contracts were unconstitutional, and Panamanian authorities seized the port assets. So why is Fink going to China now? To patch things up? Make some win-win deals? Because he was invited?
Also see:
Change.org: “Apple: Don’t Censor the China Uncensored App!”
“For over a month, Apple Inc has refused to acknowledge the China Uncensored App for iOS we submitted for approval. The Chinese Communist Party does not want this app. And Apple has heavy business ties to China. Maybe that’s just a coincidence. We can’t say for sure.
“But…Apple typically takes less than a week to approve or reject an app once it is submitted for review, often just a couple days. Yet it has been more than a month since China Uncensored submitted its app on January 24, 2025. No response. Nada.”
This hurdle was overcome. At least at the moment, the China Uncensored app is in Apple’s U.S. app store.
