Since President Trump began his second term in January, high-level US officials have never met with Chinese counterparts, despite the world's two biggest economies imposing sharp tariffs on each other.
Without the official meeting, Montana Sen. Steve Daines cast himself as an intermediary. Daines was scheduled to meet with his deputy prime minister, Lifeng, who oversees many economic issues in China on Saturday, and meet Prime Minister Li Qiang, the country's second-highest official on Sunday.
In an interview with the New York Times on Saturday after meeting with the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, he said he urged China to take effective action to halt exports of fentanyl chemical precursors.
“I met President Trump a few days before I arrived, and he was pleased to convey his 'America first' message and, importantly, to make sure that China's leaders know the seriousness of the fentanyl issue and the role they can play in stopping pioneering shipments to Mexican cartels,” Daines said.
Chinese officials say the fentanyl crisis is rooted in the US failure to curb US drug demand, and Beijing is taking effective steps to limit the shipment of fentanyl and its chemical precursors. The Chinese Cabinet issued a report on fentanyl measures earlier this month, with Daines saying it was being studied by American officials.
Daines said he is trying to lay the foundations for a meeting between President Trump and China's top leader Xi Jinping. “This visit is the first step in arranging and setting up the next step, which will be a very important meeting between President XI and President Trump.
The White House does not name it acting on behalf of Daines. But Daines is one of Trump's top ally in Congress. He was the first member of the Senate Republican leader who supported Trump for his second term in 2023, when many Republican senators watched him return to the White House.
“Given his relationship with Sen. Danes, Donald Trump, China certainly wants to learn from him about Trump's Chinese policy intentions. Does he still want to do business with China, and if so, what will the deal look like?”
China also hopes that Senator Daines will “have a message to Donald Trump that China wants to talk to the US and sit down to avoid further escalation of tensions,” Wu said.
Trump further threatened him by imposing a 20% tariff on goods from China. China wants to avoid further tariffs.
“By early April, there will be an opportunity for China and the US to engage with each other, and Senator Daines' visits can play a pivotal role,” Wu said.
Daines said the US Trade Representative has not yet completed its policy review and therefore it has not focused on tariffs with China.
Trump said he plans to meet with Xi without specifying details. China has not said anything publicly about the conference. However, there is no contact between labor-level administrative staff that normally precedes such meetings in the second term of Trump so far.
XI has made all the important decisions in China, particularly regarding foreign policy. It makes summits with the US president particularly important in setting the trajectory of bilateral relations. The two leaders met in 2017 when Xi went to Mar-A-Lago in Florida, and Trump went to China.
The lack of involvement with Washington has now begun to doubt whether Trump is sincere to his stated desire to meet XI, said Yun Sang, director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington.
“They see him rapidly changing his position on a lot of issues,” Sun said. “It almost leads to fateism for the Chinese, and they should aim to be prepared for the worst-case scenario. That's their conclusion.”
During his visit to Beijing, Daines said he also expressed concern about China's import barriers, beyond mere tariffs. He refused to provide details. But Montana politicians have long argued that, as Beijing argues, China's intermittent suspension is unfair to halts on beef imports from the state and not the result of actual concerns about crazy cow disease.
Daines lived in southern China for six years in the 1990s as a project manager for American consumer products giant Procter & Gamble.
This weekend's trip marks Daines' sixth time in China since the 2014 Senate election and has become one of the few members of Congress who have continued to travel to the country even if relations worsen.
