President Donald Trump departed the White House for Beijing on Tuesday for a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, striking a notably subdued tone on the more than two-month-old U.S. and Israeli war in Iran that has closed the Strait of Hormuz and rattled global oil markets. Speaking to reporters before his flight, Trump downplayed the Iran conflict as a point of friction with Xi, a rhetorical shift from weeks of administration pressure on Beijing to use its leverage as the world’s largest buyer of Iranian oil to bring Tehran in line.
“We’re going to have a long talk about it. I think he’s been relatively good, to be honest with you,” Trump said of his plans to discuss the conflict with Xi. Minutes later, he added, “We have a lot of things to discuss. I wouldn’t say Iran is one of them, to be honest with you, because we have Iran very much under control.”
Trump went further when asked directly whether he would press Xi to pressure the Islamic Republic. “I don’t think we need any help with Iran,” he said. The comments stood in contrast to Trump’s approach over the course of the conflict, during which he has veered between venting that China has not done more to constrain Tehran and acknowledging that Xi’s government helped de-escalate hostilities last month by nudging Iran back to ceasefire talks when negotiations wobbled.
The downbeat tone also belied a flurry of recent U.S. actions targeting Chinese interests. The State Department announced on Friday it was sanctioning four entities, including three China-based firms, for providing sensitive satellite imagery that enables Iranian military strikes against U.S. 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 Iranian crude. The sanctions cut off the designated companies from the U.S. financial system and penalize anyone who does business with them.
Beijing responded forcefully. Chinese officials called the sanctions “illegal unilateral pressure” and activated a blocking statute — passed in 2021 and never previously used — that prohibits any Chinese entity from recognizing or complying with the measures. Foreign Minister Wang Yi also hosted his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, in Beijing last week, using the meeting to defend Iran’s right to develop civilian nuclear energy.
Xi himself has offered implicit criticism of the United States over the war. The Chinese leader said that safeguarding international rule of law is paramount, adding it “must not be selectively applied or disregarded,” nor should the world be allowed to revert “to the law of the jungle.”
Meanwhile, Kuwait on Tuesday 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 did not immediately acknowledge the allegation, according to the Associated Press. Kuwait has come under repeated attack during the war and even during the shaky ceasefire still holding in the region.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have in recent days stepped up their calls for China to use its influence to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world’s crude flowed before the war began. “You can’t buy from them if you can’t ship it there, and you can’t buy from them if your economy is being destroyed by what Iran is doing,” Rubio told reporters last week, making the case that it was in China’s own interest for Iran to allow maritime traffic to resume.
China, however, has shown little appetite for deeper involvement. Ahmed Aboudouh, a specialist on China’s influence in the Middle East with the London-based Chatham House think tank, said Beijing has sent a “subtle message of discontent to Iran” for closing the strait and to the United States for its blockade of Iranian shipping. But he described China’s posture as fundamentally cautious. “They are very cautious, risk averse, and they don’t want to be involved in anything that would drag them into something that they don’t consider their problem,” Aboudouh said.
Like Trump, Xi has ample reason to keep the Iran dispute from contaminating other facets of the relationship, analysts say. Beijing wants to guard against further deterioration of U.S.-China ties that would add new headwinds to its economy. Both leaders may be eager to avoid the kind of escalation they triggered last year, when the two powers appeared on the precipice of a massive trade war. Trump had set tariffs on Chinese goods at 145%, and China announced a further tightening of rare-earth export controls that would have hurt U.S. industry — before the two governments backed away from maximalist penalties and reached a fragile truce in their long-running trade disputes in October.
The conflict has already produced difficult moments between the two leaders. Last month, Trump threatened to impose a 50% tariff on China after reports that Beijing was preparing to deliver a shipment of new air defense systems to Iran, though he later backed away from the threat, claiming he had received written assurance from Xi that China would not provide Tehran with weaponry. Days later, Trump said cryptically that the U.S. Navy had intercepted a Chinese vessel carrying a “gift” for Iran, without offering further explanation.
For now, China has appeared reluctant to be seen siding with Washington. “It will be difficult to get the Chinese deeply involved under any circumstances,” said Kurt Campbell, a former deputy secretary of state during President Joe Biden’s administration and chair of The Asia Group. “They will want to be careful because they can see political quicksand as well as the next guy.”