Donald Trump is flying to Beijing this week with 16 CEOs from America's biggest corporations. Alongside Elon Musk (Tesla) and Tim Cook (Apple), the delegation includes the heads of Boeing, BlackRock, Meta, GE Aerospace, Micron, and agribusiness giant Cargill.

The goal - trade normalisation. The expected result - „forums to ease bilateral trade and investment". In plain English, Washington and Beijing are trying to close off the tariff war that has been rattling global markets for the last three months.

One of the biggest deals on the table - 500 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft for China. That would be the first major Chinese order for American jets since 2017. For Boeing - a lifeline. For China - a message that part of the trade dispute is open for talks.

Who is not on the plane? Jensen Huang, the head of Nvidia. And that surprises everyone. China wants access to Nvidia's advanced AI chips right now, and Huang is the man who sells them. Yet he was not invited.

Why? According to Henrietta Levin, former China director on the US National Security Council, the reason is national security. Huang was ready to lean on Trump to open the American AI market wider to China - which is exactly what security officials do not want. The White House chooses - trade with Apple and Boeing, not with Nvidia.

For context - in 2017 Trump flew to Beijing with 29 CEOs. Now 16. In five years the delegation has shrunk by almost half. That reflects the complicated political ground inside the US - not every company is open to close ties with China, and not all are welcome on the presidential plane.

For the Balkans this is not distant news. The price of oil, the price of electronics, the price of spare parts - all of it runs through trade relations between the US and China. If the delegation comes back with deals, that means price stability. If it returns empty-handed, we wait for the next market shocks. And as a rule, the Balkans pay for those shocks first.