Trump may delay China trip as he pressures Beijing for help with Strait of Hormuz

[AP Photo]

President Donald Trump is suggesting he may delay his much-anticipated visit to China at the end of the month as he seeks to ramp up the pressure on Beijing to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz and calm oil prices that have soared during the Iran war.

In an interview yesterday [Macau time] with the Financial Times, Trump said China’s reliance on oil from the Middle East means it ought to help with a new coalition he is trying to put together to get oil tanker traffic moving through the strait after Iran’s threats have throttled global flows of oil. The Republican president said “we’d like to know” before the trip whether Beijing will help. “We may delay,” he said in the interview.

The uncertainty underscores just how much the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran have reshaped global politics in the past two weeks. Calling off the face-to-face visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping could have its own major economic consequences: Relations between Washington and Beijing have been fraught as both sides have threatened the other with steep tariffs over the past year.

The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In Beijing, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said only that China and the U.S. have maintained communication on Trump’s visit. “Head-of-state diplomacy plays an irreplaceable strategic guiding role in China-U.S. relations,” Lin Jian said at a daily briefing.

Trump’s new comments came as U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng yesterday in Paris for a new round of trade talks that were meant to pave the way for Trump’s Beijing trip. The U.S. and China have declared a truce that has prevented both sides from levying dueling tariffs, but the stakes remain high.

In the early days of the Iran conflict, Trump had said U.S. Navy vessels would escort oil tankers through the strait, and downplayed the threat posed by Iran. But as oil prices soared, he and his administration have been forced to consider new options — including the idea, broached this weekend, for other countries to join the push with their own warships. So far, none has yet formally heeded the call.

Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he returned to Washington from a weekend in Florida that the U.S. had spoken to “about seven” nations about offering military support. He wouldn’t say which ones, though, and demurred when he was asked directly about China — though he subsequently suggested that he’d made such an offer to Beijing.

“China’s an interesting case study,” he said, noting its reliance on Gulf oil. “So I said, ‘Would you like to come in’ and we’ll find out. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t.”

War in Iran has sent the price of oil skyrocketing, which has raised the price Americans pay at the pump, just as the midterm election season begins to heat up. China, though, has faced its own economic pressures and recently lowered its 2026 target for growth slightly to 4.5% to 5%, its slowest projected growth since 1991 — meaning prolonged disruptions in the strait could have long-term impacts for Beijing as well.

Lin, at the briefing in Beijing, did not respond directly to questions about Trump’s call for outside help in the strait. He noted the impact on goods and energy trade and repeated his government’s call for an end to the fighting.

“China once again calls on all parties to stop military actions immediately, avoid further escalation of tensions, and prevent instability in the region from having a greater impact on global economic development,” he said. WILL WEISSERT, WASHINGTON, MDT/AP