China Makes Big Announcement As Trump Arrives For Summit
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met on Wednesday with his Pakistani Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar and pushed for a peace solution between the U.S. and Iran.
Speaking on the phone, Yi told Dar that Pakistan should “maintain confidence” and “step up mediation efforts” between the U.S. and Iran.
The comments came mere moments before President Donald Trump landed in Beijing for a visit with President Xi Jinping.
Dar has been one of the principal figures in Pakistan, serving as an intermediary between Tehran and Washington.
Despite recent tensions over Pakistan allowing Iranian military aircraft to remain parked on tarmacs in the country, Pakistan has continued trying to cajole American and Iranian negotiators back into peace talks.
Those talks appeared to have been mostly stopped as Trump landed in China two days after the U.S. president dismissed Tehran’s answer to the latest American peace offering as “totally unacceptable.”
Wang “commended Pakistan for encouraging dialogue between the United States and Iran and for assisting in extending the provisional ceasefire,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry official said in a summary of the phone discussion.
He expressed hope that “Pakistan will maintain confidence, step up mediation efforts, and contribute to properly resolving the issue of opening the Strait of Hormuz and the early restoration of regional peace, which is also the common aspiration of the international community.”
“China will continue to support Pakistan’s mediation efforts and make its own contribution toward this end,” spokesperson Lin Jian said.
Trump landed in China early on Wednesday morning.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is one of several business executives accompanying Trump on Air Force One as he travels to Beijing for the summit.
Fox News host Sean Hannity is also on the flight, as is Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who was not included on the original guest list and joined as a last-minute addition during a refueling stop in Anchorage, Alaska.
Trump confirmed in a post on Truth Social that Huang was aboard Air Force One.
The US president also mentioned several other executives who were part of the official trip, including Tim Cook from Apple, Larry Fink from BlackRock, Stephen Schwarzman from Blackstone, Kelly Ortberg from Boeing, Brian Sikes from Cargill, Jane Fraser from Citigroup, Larry Culp from GE Aerospace, David Solomon from Goldman Sachs, Sanjay Mehrotra from Micron, and Cristiano Amon from Qualcomm.
Trump also noted in his Truth Social post that the first thing he would bring up with Xi is to “open up” China to American businesses, and that a CNBC story claiming that Huang was not included in the business leader entourage was wrong.
Trade, Taiwan, the Iran war, and artificial intelligence are expected to be the main topics of discussion during the upcoming meeting, as officials from both sides have spent months negotiating the details in preparation.
Trump first announced his plans to visit China during his meeting with Xi at the Busan summit in South Korea on October 30.
Beijing has indicated that it will prioritize U.S. policy on Taiwan during the talks, while Trump is expected to advocate for progress on trade and the security of the Strait of Hormuz, according to reports.
Air Force One landed in Beijing, China, at approximately 7:51 a.m. ET (Wednesday morning U.S. time and Thursday morning in China) at Beijing Capital International Airport. The plane taxied for about eight minutes before the doors opened for the official red-carpet arrival.
President Donald Trump deplaned at 8:08 a.m. ET and was greeted by Chinese Vice President H.E. Han Zheng, U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue, Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. H.E. Xie Feng, and Executive Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs H.E. Ma Zhaoxu.
The welcoming ceremony featured approximately 300 Chinese youth, a military honor guard, and a military band. “Welcome, welcome! Warm welcome!” the children chanted in Chinese.
Trump Admin Says It Uncovered $10 Billion Obamacare Fraud Scheme
The Trump administration says it has uncovered what it describes as a massive fraud scheme within the Affordable Care Act.
Members of Trump’s administration allege that roughly $10 billion in taxpayer money was improperly paid out between 2021 and 2024 because of weakened enrollment safeguards under former President Joe Biden.
According to a Department of Health and Human Services report, officials have already removed nearly three million fraudulent or improper Obamacare enrollments and estimate another 2.6 million questionable enrollments remain.
Administration officials say the findings are part of a broader government-wide effort to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse across federal programs.
The report traces the alleged problems to changes made during the Biden administration that expanded enrollment opportunities while relaxing income verification and eligibility checks.
At the start of Biden’s presidency, approximately 10 million people were enrolled through the Affordable Care Act exchanges. By 2024, enrollment had surged to roughly 22 million.
Federal investigators now believe millions of those enrollments were improper, fraudulent, or created without the knowledge of the individuals involved.
“By our estimate, improper, phantom, and fraudulent enrollment peaked at 5.6 million people in 2025,” the report states.
“We estimate 2.6 million improper and phantom enrollments remain, including over 1 million enrollments without a Social Security number.”
According to the report, several different forms of abuse contributed to the alleged fraud.
Officials say some applicants intentionally understated their income to qualify for larger taxpayer-funded subsidies.
Others allegedly received premium assistance despite failing to meet eligibility requirements.
Investigators also identified what they describe as “phantom enrollments,” in which insurance brokers allegedly enrolled people in Obamacare plans without their knowledge to collect federal commissions.
The report argues that reduced verification requirements made those practices significantly easier to carry out.
Since taking office, the Trump administration says it has restored stricter income verification requirements, ended several special enrollment periods, increased screening for duplicate Medicaid enrollment, and launched investigations into brokers suspected of creating phantom policies.
Officials also say they have strengthened oversight of agents participating in the federal marketplace.
As a result of those efforts, nearly three million enrollments have already been removed from the Affordable Care Act exchanges.
Even after those removals, approximately 19.2 million people remain enrolled.
The administration says its goal is not to reduce legitimate coverage but to ensure taxpayer dollars are being spent only on individuals who actually qualify.
“Preserving the fiscal and programmatic integrity of the ACA Exchanges is key to safeguarding taxpayer-funded resources for those that truly need them,” the report states.
“The federal government paying brokers to enroll individuals without their knowledge is not.”
The report also says the administration will continue pursuing additional enforcement actions against brokers and others accused of exploiting the program.
“The Trump Administration continues to aggressively root out fraud, waste, abuse, and corruption by promulgating new regulations to improve program integrity, investigating suspected improper or fraudulent enrollment, and taking action against agents and brokers committing fraud.”
The findings are likely to reignite debate over the Affordable Care Act and how aggressively eligibility rules should be enforced.
Supporters of the administration argue the report demonstrates that stricter oversight is necessary to protect taxpayers and preserve benefits for those legally entitled to receive them.
Critics of previous verification rollbacks have long warned that loosening enrollment safeguards could increase improper payments and fraud, while supporters of the Biden-era policies argued the changes made healthcare more accessible to eligible Americans, Fox News reported exclusively.
The administration says its investigations remain ongoing, with an estimated 2.6 million additional enrollments still under review as officials continue auditing the federal health insurance exchanges.
Trump has been pushing to replace Obamacare for over a decade, and this may give Republicans enough motivation to actually do something.
