casting on global oil markets<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cWe\u2019re going to have a long talk about it. I think he\u2019s been relatively good, to be honest with you,” Trump said of his plans to discuss the conflict with Xi. Minutes later, he added, \u201cWe have a lot of things to discuss. I wouldn\u2019t say Iran is one of them, to be honest with you, because we have Iran very much under control”.<\/p>\n
But Trump, over the course of the conflict, has veered between venting that China, the world\u2019s biggest buyer of Iranian oil, hasn’t done more to get the Islamic Republic in line and acknowledging that Xi’s government helped de-escalate the conflict last month by nudging Tehran back to ceasefire talks when negotiations wobbled.<\/p>\n
But ahead of the visit, the White House set low expectations that Trump would be able to persuade Xi to change China’s posture.<\/p>\n
Instead, Trump’s Republican administration seems determined not to let differences on Iran overshadow efforts to make headway on other difficult matters in the complicated relationship \u2014 ranging from trade to further Chinese cooperation to block exports of fentanyl precursors.<\/p>\n
US administration sanctioned China ahead of the trip<\/p>\n
![\"President](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/president-donald-trump-speaks-to-reporters-as-he-leaves-the-JES6OZKBEBD55CMCKRXOXZDFBI.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters as he leaves the White House for travel to Beijing, Wednesday, May 13, 2026, in Washington, to meet with China’s President Xi Jinping. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n
Beijing publicly insists that it wants to see the war end and has been working diplomatically behind the scenes to help its ally Pakistan push to broker a peace agreement. It has also sent a \u201csubtle message of discontent to Iran\u201d for closing the Strait of Hormuz and to the US for its blockade of Iranian shipping, said Ahmed Aboudouh, a specialist on China\u2019s influence in the Middle East with the London-based Chatham House think tank.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are very cautious, risk-averse, and they don\u2019t want to be involved in anything that would drag them into something that they don\u2019t consider their problem,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Kuwait accused Iran of dispatching an armed paramilitary Revolutionary Guard team to launch a failed attack earlier this month on an island in the Middle East nation that is home to a China-funded port project. Iran didn\u2019t immediately acknowledge the allegation by Kuwait, which came under repeated attack by Iran in the war and even during the shaky ceasefire still holding in the region.<\/p>\n
In recent days, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have stepped up their calls for China to use its influence to help reopen the strait, through which about 20% of the world’s crude flowed before the war began.<\/p>\n
The State Department announced on Saturday that it was sanctioning four entities, including three China-based firms, for providing sensitive satellite imagery that enables Iranian military strikes against US forces in the Middle East. Earlier, the Treasury Department moved to target Chinese oil refineries accused of buying oil from Tehran, as well as shippers of the oil. The sanctions cut off the companies from the US financial system and penalise anyone who does business with them.<\/p>\n
Beijing has called the sanctions \u201cillegal unilateral pressure\u201d and enacted a blocking statute \u2014 passed in 2021 and never used until now \u2014 that prohibits any Chinese entity from recognising or complying with the sanctions.<\/p>\n
Ahead of Trump’s arrival, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi last week hosted his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, in Beijing. The Chinese foreign minister used the moment to defend Iran\u2019s right to develop civilian nuclear energy.<\/p>\n
Xi has also offered implicit criticism of the US over the war. He has said that safeguarding international rule of law is paramount, adding it \u201cmust not be selectively applied or disregarded\u201d, nor should the world be allowed to revert \u201cto the law of the jungle\u201d.<\/p>\n
China and the US want to avoid a return to a tariff war<\/p>\n
![\"In](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/in-this-nov-9-2017-file-photo-us-president-donald-trump-righ-P5GP5NF7K5C6FKYJIZKRV5RAWE.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
In this Nov. 9, 2017, file photo, US President Donald Trump, right, chats with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n
Like Trump, Xi also has plenty of reason not to let differences over Iran impact other facets of the relationship, analysts say.<\/p>\n
Beijing wants to guard against further deterioration of the US-China relationship \u2014 something that would add further challenges to its economy.<\/p>\n
Yet, since the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran in late February, there have been difficult moments between Trump and Xi that threatened to set back the relative stability in their relationship.<\/p>\n
China has long supported Iran\u2019s ballistic missile program and backed it with dual-use industrial components that can be used for missile production, according to the US government.<\/p>\n
Last month, Trump threatened to impose a 50% tariff on China after reports that Beijing was preparing to deliver a shipment of new air defence systems to Iran, but he later backed away from the threat, claiming that he had received written assurance from Xi that he would not provide Tehran with weaponry. Days later, Trump said cryptically that the US Navy had intercepted a Chinese vessel carrying a \u201cgift\u201d for Iran. He has not offered further explanation.<\/p>\n
Both Trump and Xi may be eager to avoid creating dark economic clouds, as they did last year, when the two powers appeared on the precipice of a massive trade war.<\/p>\n
Trump had set tariffs on Chinese goods at 145%, and China announced a further tightening of rare-earth export controls that would have hurt US industry \u2014 before the governments backed off from inflicting maximalist penalties on each other. The two sides reached a fragile truce in their long-running trade disputes in October.<\/p>\n
Trump and other administration officials have made the case that the Iran conflict \u2014 particularly the closure of the strait \u2014 has caused greater harm to China and its Pacific neighbours than it has to the United States, which is far less dependent on Middle East oil and has an export-driven economy.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t buy from them if you can\u2019t ship it there, and you can\u2019t buy from them if your economy is being destroyed by what Iran is doing,\u201d Rubio told reporters last week, making the case that it was in China\u2019s interest for Iran to let traffic resume.<\/p>\n
But for now, China has shown little interest in wading deeper into the conflict and has appeared reluctant to be seen siding with Washington.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will be difficult to get the Chinese deeply involved under any circumstances,\u201d said Kurt Campbell, a former deputy secretary of state during President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration and chair of The Asia Group. \u201cThey will want to be careful because they can see political quicksand as well as the next guy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump downplayed differences with President Xi Jinping over the US conflict in Iran as he headed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2300,65,42,43,64,40,38,41,39,66],"class_list":["post-424856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-asia","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-north-america","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}