2 months ago
Donald Trump will meet Xi Jinping successful May during nan US president’s first sojourn to China successful 8 years, a intimately watched travel that had been postponed owed to nan Iran war.
Trump was initially slated to recreation adjacent week, but will now sojourn Beijing connected 14 and 15 May, he wrote successful a station connected Truth Social connected Wednesday. Trump said he would big nan Chinese leader successful a reciprocal sojourn successful Washington later this year.
Trump wrote: “Our Representatives are finalizing preparations for these Historic Visits. I look very overmuch guardant to spending clip pinch President Xi successful what will be, I americium sure, a Monumental Event.”
The Chinese embassy said it had nary accusation to connection connected nan visit. Beijing usually only gives detailsof Xi’s schedulea fewer days successful advance.
The long-scheduled travel – and Washington’s broader effort to reset relations successful nan Asia Pacific region – person many times been overtaken by events.
In February, nan ultimate tribunal curtailed nan US president’s powerfulness to enforce tariffs, a root of leverage for Trump successful negotiations pinch nan US’s third-biggest trading partner.
The motorboat of Trump’s associated military cognition pinch Israel against Iran connected 28 February introduced a caller constituent of hostility pinch Beijing, Tehran’s main lipid buyer.
Trump’s past travel to China, successful 2017, was nan astir caller by a US president. Trump’s sojourn successful May will beryllium nan first in-person talks betwixt nan 2 leaders since an October gathering successful South Korea wherever they agreed connected a waste and acquisition truce.
The two-day travel will harvester nan lavish pomp and condition that has go a characteristic of Trump’s trips overseas pinch hard-nosed diplomacy.
While nan 2 sides could onslaught goodwill agreements successful Beijing connected waste and acquisition successful agriculture and airplane parts, they are besides expected to talk areas of heavy hostility specified arsenic Taiwan, wherever small advancement is expected.
Trump has dramatically ramped up US arms income to Taiwan during his 2nd word successful office. The moves person angered Beijing, which claims nan democratically governed land arsenic its ain territory.
It is not clear whether nan warfare pinch Iran, which has shaken nan world economy, will beryllium settled by nan clip of nan Xi-Trump meeting.
Trump has sought support from nan world’s awesome lipid consumers, including China, to thief antagonistic Iran’s efforts to adjacent nan strait of Hormuz. Trump’s petition for assistance truthful acold has mostly been rebuffed. China, which imported astir 12m barrels of lipid regular during nan first 2 months of 2026, nan astir successful nan world, has not straight responded to his request.
Asked connected Wednesday whether nan warfare could upwind down successful clip for nan travel to China, Karoline Leavitt, nan White House spokesperson, said: “We’ve ever estimated astir 4 to six weeks. So you could do nan mathematics connected that.”
Leavitt besides said Trump and Xi said astir rescheduling nan travel and that Xi understood nan reasons for doing so. “President Xi understood that it’s very important for nan president to beryllium present passim these combat operations correct now,” she said.
