Trump heads to Beijing with Apple, Cisco, Goldman CEOs in tow — Iran looms over the summit

President Trump is heading to Beijing this week for a summit with Xi Jinping, bringing a delegation of major US tech and finance CEOs including Tim Cook of Apple, Chuck Robbins of Cisco, Larry Fink of BlackRock, Steven Schwarzman of Blackstone, David Solomon of Goldman Sachs, and reportedly Elon Musk.

The summit is dominated by one issue: brokering an end to the Iran conflict. Trump has described the current peace deal as being "on major life support," and he rejected Iran's latest response to a US peace proposal as recently as this week. The US and Israel's war with Iran has already closed the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint carrying roughly one-fifth of global oil flows, and oil prices have climbed amid fears of prolonged disruption. China has its own incentive to see the fighting stop—Iran is a major low-cost oil supplier, and Middle East turmoil is restricting China's oil supply and shrinking its ability to buy Chinese goods. A resolution would also elevate Xi's stature as a global statesman intervening at the edge of military escalation.

Trump has threatened to resume Project Freedom, a US-led operation to help ships navigate the strait, and indicated the operation would include "other things"—language that signals potential military escalation if negotiations fail.

Secondary to Iran, the summit will touch on trade deals around Chinese purchases of US agriculture, energy, and aerospace products. Tech industry participants are hoping for quick movement on the conflict so discussions can shift to export restrictions on GPUs, AI supply chains, rare earths, and other inputs the tech sector needs. However, Iran's dominance on the agenda is likely to limit substantive announcements on those fronts.

One wild card: China's recent shift away from stricter AI safety regulations. The country moved closer to allowing unfettered access to advanced AI systems, signaling less emphasis on safety review before model release. With major US tech leaders in the room, there's potential for discussion of how US and Chinese AI governance align or diverge—though the hosts note that attending CEOs are unlikely to push for stronger safety standards, given their commercial interests.