Representatives from about 40 US companies are expected to accompany President Donald Trump on the first presidential trade mission to China from November 8-10, 2017, and sign deals for billions of dollars in U.S. investments. One of the biggest deals being currently negotiated is a multibillion-dollar energy investment from Chinese oil and gas giant China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. that would bring thousands of new jobs to Texas and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Many of the deals, including the China Petroleum investment, are expected be in the form of nonbinding memorandums of understanding, not contracts.

According to Bloomberg News among the companies working on China-related deals in conjunction with the trip are: General Electric Co., Honeywell International Inc., Westinghouse Electric Co. , Alaska Gasoline Development Corp., the Boeing Co. and Qualcomm Inc. The companies represent a variety of sectors from life sciences to heavy machinery. Other companies that may have deals in progress, according to the document, include Cheniere Energy Inc., Terex Corp., Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Applied Materials Inc., Caterpillar Inc. and Blackstone Group. China's Sinopec is expected to partner with ArcLight Capital, a Boston-based infrastructure investment firm, and Freepoint Commodities LLC, a Connecticut commodity trading firm, in a US$ 7 billion investment deal in the U.S. The project would include construction of a 700-mile pipeline from the Permian oil field in western Texas to the Gulf Coast, as well as a storage facility there. The SinoPec deal alone could reduce the trade deficit between the countries by as much as $10 billion a year.  

(Comment: US President trump's 10-day Asia trip will include stops in Japan and South Korea, as well as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and Association of South East Asian Nations summits in Vietnam and the Philippines.)