The White House dinner on Sept. 24 brought together Trump, Xi and prominent US executives, including Nvidia chief Jensen Huang, AMD chief Lisa Su, Apple chief Tim Cook and Tesla chief Elon Musk. The official guest list contained 134 people, of whom 19 were from the Chinese side, including Xi and senior officials such as Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Commerce Minister Wang Wentao and Vice-Premier He Lifeng.
Xi arrived in Washington on Sept. 23 without a corporate delegation, despite reports that executives from companies including BYD, Xiaomi, battery makers CATL and Gotion, Hisense, Wanxiang, Bank of China and COFCO had been considered. Their absence stood out against the growing international reach of Chinese consumer and technology brands.
The limited business presence was not necessarily a sign that the visit had failed to deliver for Beijing, said Zhang Yun, an international relations professor at Nanjing University. Xi’s three-day schedule was concentrated in Washington and focused mainly on political and strategic matters, Zhang said; commercial engagement could take place at another time.
Zhang pointed to Xi’s 2015 US visit, when Chinese business leaders attended a business roundtable in Seattle but did not accompany him to Washington. He said the APEC summit scheduled for Shenzhen in November could offer another opportunity for Xi and Trump to discuss business.
George Chen of The Asia Group also cautioned against treating the imbalance at the dinner as a measure of the summit’s success. Trump’s gathering of leading US technology figures helped showcase American innovation, particularly in artificial intelligence, while a comparable Chinese contingent was not essential to Xi’s political agenda, Chen said.
The more consequential obstacle for companies may be the difficult investment climate between the two economies. Zhang cited US restrictions and national-security reviews affecting Chinese investment. Huawei faces longstanding US restrictions, while CATL and Gotion have faced scrutiny in Washington; BYD has been kept out of the US passenger electric-vehicle market by tariffs and other limits on Chinese-made vehicles and technology.
The uncertainty also reaches consumers. A federal worker in Washington told the report she avoids platforms such as Temu and Shein because of concerns about data and privacy, but returned to TikTok after briefly switching to Instagram Reels when TikTok went offline in January 2025. The episode illustrated how political tension coexists with the everyday use of Chinese-origin products and services in the United States.