Just about ten days ago, the U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News that China was buying 90% of Iran’s energy, “so they are funding the largest state sponsor of terrorism.”
Bessent may have got the country wrong, as it has been the USA that is the destabilising power in the world. So if anyone is funding war and destruction, it is the USA.
Just this year, it has assassinated sovereign state leaders, kidnapped a head of state, started an illegal war against Iran, increased the stranglehold of Cuba, killed civilians in acts of perfidy in the Caribbean sea, armed Israel to kill innocents in Lebanon, and continued its genocide in Palestine.
Today, Bessent, along with Trump and a dozen American CEOs, is in China for bilateral talks.
The United States is perfectly willing to lecture Beijing on terrorism while dispatching its corporate elite to cut deals and chase market access.
Highly awkward and unusual situation
Biden, in his two terms, did not visit China. The last visit to China by a US head of state was by Trump, nine years ago.
Presumably, the China hawks in the US, like Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton, who are unable to distinguish between Singapore and China, would have criticised Biden too much, so he avoided it.
Cotton’s clip on not knowing the difference between two Asian countries went viral, and he was still posting about menacing “Communist China” filling his beloved America with dangerous products while his MAGA hero was in there.
TikTok’s CEO did not “dodge” your stupid questions: He made it very clear that he’s SINGAPOREAN, not Chinese.
Do you understand that Singapore is a different country?
Tom Cotton doesn’t care because he’s a neo-McCarthyite demagogue who wants war on China pic.twitter.com/3l3MHFEcLJ https://t.co/V2SajF1GRL
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) February 3, 2024
The cultish MAGA does indeed allow Trump to get away with anything.
Even the hawkish Washington think tanks are trying to sell this self-confessed “highly awkward” visit.
Rush Doshi of the US think tank Council on Foreign Relations:
This meeting is coming at an unusual time. It’s coming at a time when there is a detente right now between the U.S. and China, an uneasy kind of equilibrium. But in the backdrop is Iran. The very fact that a U.S. president is going to China while he’s also having his military blockade Chinese ships in the Strait of Hormuz is a highly awkward and unusual situation.
Doshi said that while Trump was bringing a smaller “but very impressive” delegation of about a dozen CEOs to China, including Elon Musk, Wall Street financial heads, Boeing, and Qualcomm, representing a diverse range of industries, which is a smaller group than the 40 CEOs he took to the Gulf in 2025.
China — CEOs galore
So why are the CEOs there? The answer is simple — whether the US likes it or not, China is a resolute competitor and trading partner. They are there to “unlock regulatory approvals, market access, and investment opportunities.”
Musk is there because China is weighing curbs on exports of solar manufacturing equipment to the United States, which could threaten plans by Tesla to build new factories or expand existing ones to boost local production, according to Reuters.
Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg told Reuters last month that the US plane maker was counting on the Trump administration to help unlock a long-awaited major order from China 500 737 Max jets.
Cargill is there because the US wants China to increase its purchases of agriculture from the United States, according to Bloomberg.
Meta is there seemingly because China recently blocked Meta’s $2 billion acquisition of Chinese-founded AI startup Manus, Bloomberg implies.
Washington has previously restricted sales of advanced semiconductors primarily from Nvidia to China in an effort to limit the country’s AI development. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was reportedly added late to Trump’s delegation to China. The USA took some of these restrictions away in January, but China has refused to buy any so far.
War on Iran
If the USA is looking for subservience from China, like it commands from the UAE, Israel, or the UK, this is unlikely.
Chinese company that tracked US bombers over Iran wears sanctions with pride https://t.co/98pS2k9ZtR
— South China Morning Post (@SCMPNews) May 13, 2026
China’s South China Morning Post reported that a Chinese company that tracked US bombers over Iran, despite sanctions, wears sanctions with pride. The report said:
Chinese satellite imagery firm MizarVision, which rose to fame with its analysis of American military deployments in the US-Israel war on Iran, is treating its addition to the US sanctions list as a badge of honour in its hiring campaign.
Chinese company that tracked US bombers over Iran wears sanctions with pride https://t.co/98pS2k9ZtR
— South China Morning Post (@SCMPNews) May 13, 2026
Looks like Trump and Bessent are stuck with doing business with the “funders of state-sponsored terrorism.”
Featured image via the Canary
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