Chinese officials are weighing whether to send some of the country's biggest corporate names to Washington alongside Xi Jinping next week, with BYD founder Wang Chuanfu and Xiaomi executives under consideration for a business delegation that would accompany the Chinese leader during his September 24 meeting with Donald Trump. Nothing has been finalized, and the list of candidates could still change before the trip.
According to eletric-vehicles.com, officials are considering including BYD founder Wang Chuanfu in the delegation, while executives from Xiaomi are also likely to be part of the group. The same report says CATL could be on the list, and representatives from Zhongji Innolight and Bank of China might also be invited. As the outlet put it, nothing is confirmed, and the list can still change, with some candidates awaiting U.S. visas.
A separate report from m.ajupress.com similarly named BYD as a potential candidate for the economic delegation but cautioned that the final list of Chinese companies accompanying Xi had not yet been confirmed as of earlier this week. Xi is due in Washington for a meeting with Trump and a state dinner on September 24, per the same eletric-vehicles.com report.
Trump Has Floated Chinese Factories on U.S. Soil
The prospect of a corporate entourage comes as Trump has signaled openness to a deeper Chinese industrial footprint in the United States. Chinese automakers could establish factories domestically and hire American workers, Trump has said, according to the ajupress.com report — a notable position given the trade friction that has defined the EV sector for years.
That friction is significant. The United States has charged a 100% tariff on Chinese-built electric vehicles since September 27, 2024, per the eletric-vehicles.com report, a policy that has shaped how companies like BYD approach the American market. BYD, which says on its own website that it was founded in 1994 and has grown into a company spanning electronics, automobiles, renewable energy and rail transit, reported annual revenue exceeding RMB 700 billion in 2024, according to byd.com.
Domestic Slowdown, Overseas Surge
BYD's sales patterns help explain why a seat at the table in Washington might matter. The company's domestic sales fell 33% in the first eight months of the year even as overseas sales rose 86% to 1,162,260 vehicles, per the eletric-vehicles.com report — a split that underscores how central export markets, and the tariff regimes that govern them, have become to the company's fortunes.
Securing additional rare-earth export licenses for American companies is among Washington's main priorities for the summit, the same report notes. Also part of the backdrop: Ford is building a 1.8-million-square-foot Michigan battery plant using CATL technology under a licensing arrangement announced in 2023, tying at least one major American automaker directly to the Chinese battery giant now under consideration for Xi's delegation.
How This Compares to Past Delegations
If Beijing does send a sizable group, it would mark a departure from recent history. Xi's last sizable business group visit to the United States was in 2015, when he brought a party of roughly 15 companies, according to eletric-vehicles.com. The dossier around this trip also points to differing counts of the entourage Trump brought on his own China trip — the eletric-vehicles.com report states Trump took about 18 executives to Beijing in May, including Nvidia's Jensen Huang and Tesla's Elon Musk, while Newsweek put the figure at about a dozen U.S. executives joining Trump for the trip to meet Xi.
Newsweek also reported that the American delegation was notably smaller than the group that traveled in 2017, roughly half the size, with heavy representation from technology, artificial intelligence and financial sectors. The executives who traveled with Trump represented the chip, finance, agriculture, aerospace, technology and payments industries, according to the outlet's reporting.
The original account of the potential Chinese delegation, first reported by Reuters, also named Gotion, Hisense and Wanxiang Group among companies under consideration, alongside BYD, Xiaomi, CATL and Bank of China. That reporting, credited to Reuters correspondent Laurie Chen, described the potential delegation as an unusually large group for a Chinese leader to bring to the United States, with final invitations expected to go out to companies in the coming days pending confirmation at a meeting between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng.
