The lawmakers pressed China’s leadership on fentanyl, agricultural market access, and Boeing aircraft purchases ahead of an anticipated Trump-Xi summit next week.
A bipartisan group of five U.S. senators held three high-level meetings in Beijing on Friday with China’s top leadership, including Premier Li Qiang and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in a rare diplomatic overture that comes days before President Trump is expected to meet with President Xi Jinping.
The delegation — led by Sen. Steve Daines (R., Mont.) and including Sens. Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.), Jerry Moran (R., Kan.), Deb Fischer (R., Neb.), and Mike Lee (R., Utah) — also met with Zhao Leji, chairman of the National People’s Congress, in what amounted to one of the most senior congressional engagements with Chinese leadership in recent years.
The visit is Daines’ seventh trip to China since being elected to Congress, and he arrived with unusually deep firsthand experience of the country. He spent 13 years in a management role at Procter & Gamble, the last six based in China, where he worked to launch American consumer brands in competition with local companies. That background has made him one of the Senate’s more active voices on U.S.-China economic competition.
“In order to effectively compete with China, we need to understand China’s innovation ecosystem,” Daines said. “With the United States and China making up 40 percent of the total world economy, engaging the Chinese is vital to maintaining U.S. competitiveness globally.”
In addition to the government meetings, the delegation visited technology companies in Shanghai and Beijing to assess China’s innovation landscape firsthand — a signal that congressional concern about American competitiveness in advanced industries extends beyond tariffs and trade policy.
The senators pressed Chinese officials on a broad range of issues with both strategic and economic dimensions. On security, they raised cooperation to halt the flow of fentanyl precursors from China into the United States, a persistent flashpoint in the bilateral relationship, as well as Iran’s activities in the Strait of Hormuz and the security of global supply chains.
The economic agenda centered heavily on American agriculture. The delegation pushed for greater Chinese market access for U.S. beef, wheat, soybeans, potatoes, apples, cherries, pulse crops, grain sorghum, and seafood — industries that have long sought relief from Chinese tariffs and import restrictions that they say disadvantage American producers.
The lawmakers also raised Boeing’s relationship with China and a proposed aircraft purchase currently under consideration by Chinese carriers, a deal that would represent a significant order for the American aerospace manufacturer as it works to rebuild its commercial backlog.
The meetings were framed around the value of direct and sustained communication between Washington and Beijing. The senators said they expressed hope that next week’s anticipated summit between Trump and Xi would produce meaningful outcomes on the issues discussed.
The trip underscores growing congressional interest in engaging China directly as the two governments navigate trade tensions, national security disputes, and the contours of a potential broader diplomatic reset.
By: DNU Staff