Trump due in China for high-stakes summit with Xi Jinping, as Iran war looms over talks

The US president will arrive with tech leaders including Elon Musk and Tim Cook, with trade, AI and Taiwan all set to be discussed

Donald Trump is due to arrive in Beijing on Wednesday evening, the first visit to China by a US president in nearly a decade, as he seeks to mend power and prestige weakened by the war in Iran.

Trump will bring tech leaders, including Elon Musk of Tesla and Tim Cook of Apple, and plans for headline-grabbing deals. He has said he expects China’s leader, Xi Jinping, would “give me a big, fat hug when I get there”.

But the Middle East conflict that Trump started, and seems unable to finish, will cast a long shadow over two days of talks amid fears that he might be tempted to weaken US support for Taiwan, the self-governing democracy claimed by China, in return for Xi’s assistance.

“I don’t think we need any help with Iran,” Trump said to reporters before departing the White House on Tuesday. “We’ll win it one way or the other – peacefully or otherwise.”