WASHINGTON , March 17 – U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday he wants to delay his highly anticipated visit to Beijing for a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping by “a month or so” due to the ongoing war with Iran.
“We’re working on that right now,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “I’d love to (go to China), but because of the war, I want to be here. I have to be here.”
Trump, who was due to visit the Chinese capital from March 31 to April 2, also said, “I’m looking forward to being with him. We have a very good relationship,” referring to Xi, with the U.S. president pushing Asian and European countries to help secure the Strait of Hormuz that has been largely closed to shipping for around two weeks.
He said the United States has requested that China postpone his meeting with Xi.
Hours before, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters Trump’s trip to China could be rescheduled, citing the need for him to concentrate on the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.
“As commander-in-chief, it’s his number one priority right now to ensure the continued success of this operation, Epic Fury. So, we’ll keep you posted on the dates as soon as we can,” she said of the military campaign against Iran that the two countries launched on Feb. 28.
Following a meeting with top Chinese economic officials in Paris, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also said at a press conference that Trump wants to remain in Washington “to coordinate the war effort.”
“Traveling abroad at a time like this may not be optimal,” he added.
A day earlier, Trump said in an interview with the Financial Times that he could delay his meeting with Xi if China did not respond to his request to help unblock the Strait of Hormuz in the coming days.
With Iran essentially closing the strait, Trump has been stepping up pressure on countries highly reliant on oil from the Middle East, also including Japan and South Korea, to send warships to secure the critical shipping corridor.
During a gathering at the White House, Trump reiterated his call for support to help reopen the strait — through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil supply flows — and claimed that “numerous countries have told me they’re on the way. Some are very enthusiastic about it, and some aren’t.”
He underscored that the level of enthusiasm before the war ends matters to him but did not specify which countries were enthusiastic and which were not.
He complained that some U.S. allies are reluctant to step in, even though the United States has helped them for “many, many years.”
Trump is scheduled to host Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi at the White House on Thursday, possibly putting her in a very difficult position.
As the war entered its third week with no signs of an immediate end, the prospects of Trump’s first trip to China in his second term were becoming increasingly uncertain.
Still, the top economic officials of the two countries held two days of talks through Monday to prepare for the summit and agreed to maintain close communication.
Speaking in Paris, Bessent suggested their discussions focused mainly on trade issues, including explaining the Trump administration’s new tariff policy to China’s delegation led by Vice Premier He Lifeng.
China, according to its official media, opposed fresh U.S. trade probes that could lead to the reimposition of high tariffs later this year.
After the Supreme Court ruled in February that Trump could not use a 1970s-era emergency law to impose sweeping tariffs without congressional approval, his administration is seeking to replace them with new ones under a different legal framework.
Last week, the administration opened investigations under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 into China, among other countries, over its suspected practices of industrial overcapacity and forced labor.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, who joined the two-day talks, said they discussed potentially creating a mechanism to promote trade between the world’s two largest economies. He said such a body could be called the “U.S.-China Board of Trade.”
Since last year, Bessent and He have led multiple rounds of trade negotiations in European and Asian cities, including Geneva, Stockholm and Kuala Lumpur.
They set the stage for Trump’s talks with Xi in late October in South Korea, during which the presidents agreed to a one-year truce in a trade war between their countries.
