The US Commerce Department has revealed the list of the 37 major deals signed between US and Chinese companies around President Donald Trump's trip through Asia.
The dollar value of those deals is $253.4 billion. Caterpillar, Boeing and Goldman Sachs are just some of the notable names on the list of companies that made deals with China, CNBC reported.
The agreements, some of which were less than firm contracts, signed at a ceremony attended by Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, included the purchase of US-made chipsets, jetliners and soybeans. The two sides agreed to cooperate on a gas project in Alaska they valued at $43 billion and a shale gas demonstration project valued at $83.7 billion.
After the signing ceremony, Xi promised a more open business environment for foreign companies after Trump vowed to change what were deemed unfair trade relations.
Xi said China is committed to further opening its economy to foreign investment, though he gave no details.
Chinese Commerce Minister Zhong Shan said deals signed Thursday totaled $253.4 billion. That was on top of $9 billion in agreements signed Wednesday at an event attended by US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.
Ross said the deals were a good example of Trump helping to build bilateral trade relationships between the two nations.
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf, Cheniere Energy CEO Jack Fusco, Air Products CEO Seifollah Ghasemi, and division heads from Boeing and General Electric were among the more than two dozen business leaders who attended.
Trade has been one of Trump's core priorities in his first year in office. He held talks with Xi about the multibillion-dollar US trade deficit with China.
According to Chinese customs data, China's trade surplus with the US expanded by 12.2% in October from a year earlier to $26.6 billion. For the first 10 months of the year, the total surplus widened to $223 billion. China is the US's No. 3 export market, just behind Canada and Mexico.
Blankfein told CNBC on Thursday it's inevitable that the Chinese economy will be bigger than the US economy based on the sheer population disparity alone.
"These are the two biggest economies in the world," Blankfein said in the interview from Beijing.
"On a constant dollar basis," taking inflation into account, the Chinese economy is not that close to exceeding the US economy in the near term, Blankfein said. US gross domestic product was about $18.5 trillion in 2016 compared with Chinese GDP of $11.4 trillion.
According to a PwC study, the Chinese economy will overtake the US economy by 2030 by about $26.5 trillion to $23.5 trillion.
But on the measure of "purchasing power," China has already surpassed the US, Blankfein said.
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