US orders travelers on Air Force One to throw away gifts, pins, and burner phones after China trip
In Brief
8:42 AM PDT · May 15, 2026
President Trump and a delegation of U.S. officials left Beijing on Friday after two days of high-level talks with the Chinese government, led by President Xi Jinping.
Before boarding Air Force One, White House staffers and reporters had to surrender various items collected during the trip, including staff burner phones, credential badges, and lapel pins issued by China. Those traveling on Air Force One threw those objects in a bin at the bottom of the plane’s stairs, according to a journalist in the White House press pool.
“Nothing from China allowed on the plane,” Emily Goodin, the White House correspondent for the New York Post, wrote in a post on X.
Photos from the trip show several people in the U.S. government delegation, including Trump, White House communications director Steven Cheung, Apple chief executive Tim Cook, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, and...
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