Washington – President Trump heads to China on Tuesday where he is highly anticipated the top and the President of China Xi Jinping, following the meeting Mr. Trump is delayed because fight against Iran.
Trade will be a big topic for the two leaders, but the tense situation in Iran and the supply chain bottleneck in the Persian Gulf will be inevitable topics. The president said on Monday they will discuss energy with Taiwan again. Xi is looking to return Taiwan fully under Beijing's control without intervention from the United States.
Mr. Trump spoke highly of Xi before their meeting.
“He's a great gentleman. I find him a wonderful, wonderful man,” the president told reporters Monday in the Oval Office.
“I have a very good relationship with President Xi,” the president also told reporters in the Oval Office last week. “You know, I find him to be a wonderful guy. And we get along, and you see how we do – we do a lot of business with China, we make a lot of money. We make a lot of money.”
The president said last week that Xi would give him a “big, fat” hug when they meet.
Mr Trump is expected to leave the White House on Tuesday for the meeting. Beijing is 12 hours ahead of Washington.
A number of business leaders may join the president's delegation to Beijing, according to a White House official, who said the invite list includes Elon MuskApple's Tim Cook, Blackrock's Larry Fink and Goldman Sachs' David Solomon, among others. It is not yet clear who will join the tour.
What Washington and Beijing want
Both China and the US want to ensure that their relationship is stable, and neither country has much interest in disrupting it, foreign policy experts say.
“Their main concern is how to stabilize US-China relations so that the two sides can engage in long-term strategic competition for an indefinite period of time without risk spilling over to war,” said Zongyuan Zoe Liu, senior China studies officer at the Council on Foreign Relations.
For both sides, “The summit itself, I would say, is already unachievable,” Liu said.
How can a war with Iran fit into their meetings
Henrietta Levin, executive director of the China-focused Center for Strategic and International Studies, said China already believed it was in a stronger position than the US before the Iran war began.
“China is already very confident going into this conference when the meeting was expected in March,” Levin said, adding, “They feel they have won the 2025 trade war.”
“A war with Iran may have boosted their confidence to some extent,” Levin said. “They see the US is distracted in Asia, burning through the use of very important armored vehicles to build deterrence in Asia. So in a certain ascending way, Beijing may feel more confident now, but I think that is a change of level instead of a restructuring of China's opinion, because they already feel more confident in their ability to manage relations.”
Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office last week that he and Xi “will be talking” about Iran, but said Xi “has been very positive about this,” given how much Chinese oil comes from the Strait of Hormuz. China is the world's leading buyer of oil from the crisis, although it has kept it for itself.
The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission states that Chinese imports account for nearly 90% of Iran's oil exports, making it a major supporter of Iran's economy.
The president told Fox News last week that he was “not very disappointed” with Beijing, but also said that China could “help a lot” with Iran, especially in normalizing the Strait of Hormuz.
“You've been very good about this,” said Mr. Trump on Xi. “In all fairness, he gets like 60% of his oil from Hormuz. And he's been, I think, very respectable. We haven't been challenged by China.”
But China has given little public indication that it wants to help the US in Iran. And just before the president's trip, the Treasury Department issued new sanctions on Iran that hit several Chinese-based businesses, prompting China to insist it would protect those companies.
Trade will definitely be a topic
Trade is likely to dominate the discussion between the two presidents, as the 2025 trade war between the US and China has receded.
Both sides, Levin said, want to avoid a repeat of the 2025 crisis.
The US is focusing on “quick trade deals” that are very small and have a visible impact, Levin said – deals that the president can announce in a press release or on Truth Social. China's goals are very broad and long-term, he said.
“China is focused on strategic questions, the answers to which will shape the future of Asia in the 21st century,” Levin said.
Liu said China needs to talk less about trade than the US.
“They have shown that they can fight a trade war,” Liu said of China.
Tariffs on imports from China reached 145% last year, but after back-and-forth tariffs, the countries reached an agreement and signed a one-year deal to end most trade sanctions by the end of 2026. The Supreme Court in February struck down some of the president's emergency tariffs, but some of the tariffs on Chinese goods remain.
Taiwan
President Trump told reporters on Monday that he expects Taiwan to talk to Xi because it “keeps coming up.”
“You will bring Taiwan I think more than I will,” the American president said.
Taiwan did not come up the last time he and Xi met in person in October on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea, Mr. Trump at the time, which surprised people in the foreign policy community. It was the last time the two leaders met in person.
Beijing, Levin said, hopes to be able to convince the president to see the Taiwan issue through a lens more compatible with Beijing's view — that Taiwan rightfully belongs to Beijing.
While Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other Republicans may be adamant about continuing to support Taiwan, “I think Beijing sees an opportunity here because President Trump has expressed some conflict in his rhetoric,” Levin said.
On Monday, a reporter asked the president in the Oval Office whether the US would still sell weapons to Taiwan.
“Well, I will have that conversation with President Xi,” he said. “President Xi would like us not to do it.”
China, said Liu, does not want to make an agreement with a foreign nation in Taiwan.
“Their main idea is that Taiwan is China's domestic issue,” he said.
Levin said Americans should care about Taiwan for many reasons.
“Taiwan is the epicenter of the world's modern economy,” Levin said. “There is no AI revolution outside of Taiwan. They play an irreplaceable role in the global value chains that underpin much of what we associate with modern life.”
Taiwan has significant semiconductor potential. Most of the world's semiconductor technology comes from Taiwan.
For democratic reasons, too, Americans should care what happens in Taiwan, Levin said. This is not just about Taiwan, he said – how the US handles the situation in Taiwan will say a lot about the US's commitment to its Asian and European allies.
“Taiwan is a thriving democracy that shares American values,” Levin said. “That may not suit President Trump personally, but I think that in general, the question of whether the US is able and willing to maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is seen as a test of US staying power in the Indo-Pacific and the world.”
