American staff gathered all items handed out by Chinese officials to the US delegation and press before boarding Air Force One on May 15, 2026. These included credentials, delegation badges, and burner phones. The items were placed into a trash bin at the bottom of the aircraft stairs and not taken aboard the plane, following a strict rule barring anything originating from China on Air Force One [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12].

Emily Goodin, a correspondent on site, said, "所有來自中國的東西都不允許帶上飛機。We’re taking off shortly for…" and later detailed that staff "took everything Chinese officials handed out – credentials, burner phones from WH staff, pins for delegation – collected them before we got on AF1 and threw them in a bin at bottom at stairs" [1, 6].

This security measure followed concerns that Chinese gifts have historically sometimes contained listening devices. US officials aim to prevent any potential espionage by removing all Chinese-origin items before departure [11]. Fox News host Ainsley Earhardt noted, "所有美國人都在使用拋棄式手機，而且必須銷毀並留在中國。他們不希望任何中方提供的物品留在那架飛機上，因為那些東西可能被裝設竊聽器，也可能涉及間諜活動" [3].

During the visit, Trump and the entire US staff were instructed not to use personal devices to reduce hacking risk. Instead, they used "clean" or burner phones with limited functionality. Trump found the digital isolation challenging and did not use his personal phone throughout the trip [1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12]. The White House staff also stored personal devices in Faraday bags aboard Air Force One to shield from remote hacking attempts [1].

Trump met China’s President Xi Jinping at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on May 14, 2026, for talks lasting over two hours. Trump said he did not make any commitments on Taiwan during the meeting [8, 9, 10, 11, 12]. The visit included discussions mentioning $14 billion in Taiwan arms sales [8, 9, 10, 11, 12].

Chinese officials Wang Yi, Ma Zhaoxu, and Ambassador Xie Feng accompanied Trump to the airport to see the delegation off on May 15 [1, 8]. The flight departed Beijing shortly after the Chinese items were disposed of.

The delegation’s strict security protocols reflect longstanding US concerns about potential Chinese cyber and electronic surveillance. The next scheduled public event for Trump was not specified in the available facts.