Washington: A high-powered delegation of American business leaders including Elon Musk will accompany US President Donald Trump on his visit to China this week, as the two leaders prepare to discuss the sensitive topic of arms sales to Taiwan. The Tesla and SpaceX boss will be joined by outgoing Apple chief executive Tim Cook, Blackrock’s Larry Fink, Goldman Sachs’ chairman and CEO David Solomon and Boeing’s president and chief executive Kelly Ortberg, among others. Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk. AP The list of 17 people, several of whom are billionaires, was confirmed by a White House official as Trump prepares to leave for Beijing tomorrow. Two women are in the delegation: Dina Powell, the president and vice-chair of Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, and Trump’s former deputy national security adviser, as well as Jane Fraser, the chief executive of Citigroup. Advertisement The US and China are expected to formally announce a Board of Trade and Board of Investment at or after the summit, and discuss additional agreements on industries including aerospace, agriculture and energy. The White House wants Beijing to agree to purchase more soybeans from American farmers, as well as Boeing aircraft. It follows a thawing of trade relations during a brief meeting in Busan, South Korea last year in which Trump agreed to lower tariffs and Xi relaxed export controls on rare earths. US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Monday. AP While Trump wants to focus on business deals between the world’s two largest economies, the Beijing summit will also feature significant discussions about the war in Iran and the status of Taiwan, over which China has long claimed ownership. “It always comes up,” Trump said on Monday (US time), adding that he did not want to see any aggression from Beijing akin to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Advertisement “I don’t want that to happen … We’re very far away. We’re 9500 miles, he [Xi] is 67 miles. It’s a little bit of a difference. But there’s a lot of support for Taiwan from Japan, from countries in that area.” Related Article