President Donald Trump said Monday that the U.S. has asked to delay his planned meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing by “a month or so” due to the ongoing war with Iran.
Trump was expected to travel to China at the end of March for the meeting with Xi.
But when asked in the Oval Office on Monday afternoon if that trip was still on, Trump said, “I don’t know, we’re working on that right now.”
“We’re speaking to China. I’d love to, but because of the war, I want to be here. I have to be here, I feel,” Trump said.
“And so, we’ve requested that we delay it a month or so,” Trump said. “I’m looking forward to being with him. We have a very good relationship.”
The comments came as tensions between the two economic superpowers have recently appeared to ratchet up, spurred by the Iran war and the U.S. announcing a new investigation into Chinese trade practices.
Trump insisted in Monday’s remarks that the proposed delay was solely about him being in the U.S. to manage the war.
“There’s no tricks to it either,” he added. “It’s very simple. We’ve got a war going on. I think it’s important that I be here.”
Top Trump administration officials, including Trump himself, had earlier telegraphed that the Iran war could disrupt plans for the high-profile summit in China.
Trump told the Financial Times on Sunday that China — a top buyer of Iranian oil exports that has come out against the war — should help the U.S. break Iran’s de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital global energy corridor.
Waiting to do so until after the summit would be too late, he told the outlet.
Treasury Scott Bessent later appeared to soften those remarks, telling CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday morning that any rescheduling of the summit would be for logistical reasons.
“It wouldn’t be delayed because the president demanded that China police the Strait of Hormuz,” said Bessent, who had met with his Chinese counterparts in Paris over the weekend.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News later Monday morning that it’s “quite possible” that the meeting could be delayed.
Days after the U.S. launched its first attacks against Iran in late February, analysts told CNBC that they did not expect the fighting would derail the Trump-Xi summit in China. But they cautioned that the circumstances could shift dramatically depending on how the war evolves.
Last week, the Trump administration launched new investigations into potentially unfair trade practices by China and more than a dozen other countries. Those probes were announced after the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s biggest tariffs, which included major levies he had imposed on imports from China.
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