U.S. President Donald Trump prepares to greet Chinese President Xi Jinping before a bilateral meeting at Gimhae Air Base October 30, 2025 in Busan, South Korea.
Andrew Harnik | Getty Images
American President Donald Trump said his planned trip to China later this month could be delayed as Washington seeks to pressure Beijing to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, highlighting a new flashpoint in an already fragile bilateral relationship.
In a interview Writing in the Financial Times on Sunday, Trump said he expected China to help unblock the strait before heading to Beijing for a summit with the Chinese leader. Xi Jinpingwho had been scheduled from March 31 to April 2.
Trump added that the two weeks leading up to the meeting were “long” and that Washington wanted clarification before then. “We can delay,” Trump told the FT, without specifying the timetable.
The remarks came as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met with his Chinese counterpart He Lifeng. in Paris for discussions on the planned summit. Beijing has not yet confirmed dates and typically announces these projects closer to their scheduled start.
The visit would be the first by a US president since Trump’s last trip during his first term in 2017. It also comes five months after the two leaders encounter in the South Korean city of Busan, where they agreed to a one-year truce in a trade war that saw tariffs briefly rise to triple-digit levels last year.
China’s top diplomat Wang Yi said earlier this month that the exchange agenda was already “on the table.”
Asset said Sunday aboard Air Force One, that China bought about 90% of its oil through the strait, viewing Beijing’s cooperation on Hormuz as a matter of self-interest. The president called on several European and Asian countries, including China, to help open the chokepoint through which about a fifth of the world’s daily oil supply passes.
However, the figures suggest that Beijing may be more insulated from the strait closure and soaring oil prices than Trump’s comments suggested.
China has spent the last two decades diversifying its energy sources and building strategic reserves to cushion the shock of any prolonged disruption. As of January, Beijing held about 1.2 billion barrels of onshore crude stocks, enough to meet demand for three to four months.
Seaborne oil imports through the strait now account for less than half of China’s total oil shipments, according to Rush Doshi, director of the China Strategic Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations, a Washington-based think tank. Nomura also estimated that oil flows through Hormuz represent only 6.6% of China’s total energy consumption.
Satellite images tracked by maritime research companies have shown that Iran has continued to ship large quantities of crude oil to China since the war broke out late last month.
A “bluff”Beijing is unlikely to comply with Trump’s request to send military ships to help reopen the strait, nor is the president serious about canceling the Beijing summit, said Edward Fishman, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Fishman called Trump’s remarks a “bluff.”
“The bet China made more than a decade ago on clean energy – becoming the world’s largest producer of solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles – is clearly paying off now,” Fishman said, adding that Beijing stands to gain as world leaders accelerate their transition to alternative energy sources in the wake of the Iran conflict.
“And that’s going to give China enormous leverage, because they’re the ones who hold the key to all of these technologies,” Fishman said.
Both sides appeared to step up pressure in the run-up to the high-stakes summit in Beijing. The United States has launched trade investigations in a wide range of countries over alleged excess capacity and failure to combat forced labor.
In a statement Monday, China’s Commerce Ministry said the Trump administration had “once again abused the Section 301 investigation process to override domestic law at the expense of international rules,” calling the investigations “extremely one-sided, arbitrary and discriminatory.”
Beijing said it had formally lodged representations with Washington against the investigations. “We urge the US side to immediately correct its bad practices and compromise with China,” a ministry spokesperson said, calling for dialogue and negotiated solutions.
The ministry said it would closely monitor the progress of the investigations and take unspecified measures to defend China’s interests.
—CNBC Evelyn Cheng And Penny Chen contributed to this report.