The Trump administration is gathering corporate executives on Thursday to discuss ways America can lead on artificial intelligence, fifth-generation wireless technology and advanced manufacturing.
Among the expected guests are the chief executive officers of Google, IBM, Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Oracle. While President Trump is not expected to attend, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and other top administration officials, along with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, are slated to participate in the first of several discussions on “industries of the future.”
The administration asked “each of the participants to come to the White House with their suggestions for how to create an environment that will enable us to dominate in these industries not only in the years to come, but in the decades to come,” a senior administration official told reporters.
One topic that’s not expected to come up is Trump’s ongoing trade discussions with China, despite the turmoil in the U.S. stock markets over the future of those negotiations.
While Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping reached a 90-day trade detente at the recent G-20 summit, questions remain over what was actually agreed to in Argentina, including whether China will remove an additional 25 percent tariff on U.S. auto imports. And the arrest on Saturday of a top executive at Huawei Technologies in Canada is casting a further shadow over the ongoing talks.
The information shared in the meeting will be incorporated “into the broader context of how we’re engaging not just with China, but other countries around the world,” one official said.
