President Donald Trump heads to Beijing this week to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping, bringing together two leaders who have described each other as both adversary and friend and are now set to collide over Iran, Taiwan and trade pressure.
Trump has already signaled one of the sharper points of the talks. On Monday in the Oval Office, he said he will discuss U.S. arms sales to Taiwan with Xi, after saying on May 5 that he suggested the Chinese leader redirect oil tankers bound for Iranian crude toward American ports instead. “Send your ships to Texas. It’s not that much further. Send your ships to Louisiana. Send your ships to Alaska,” Trump said, adding that Alaska is “actually very close to a lot of the Asian countries.”
The trip comes after months of friction over issues that go well beyond one summit. A senior U.S. official said Trump has spoken multiple times with Xi about China’s purchasing of oil and other goods from Iran, while the Treasury Department has ramped up sanctions on Chinese banks and refineries. China has kept buying Iranian oil during the war in Iran, giving Tehran an economic lifeline even as Washington tries to choke off revenue. Days before the summit, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met publicly with his Iranian counterpart to tout close ties between the two countries.
Beijing is also expected to press hard on Taiwan. China has signaled that it will push the U.S. on the issue, and Wang told Secretary of State Marco Rubio in an April 30 call that Taiwan was the “biggest risk” in China-U.S. relations. He also said Washington had made the “right choice” in other areas, underscoring how sharply Taiwan still dominates the diplomatic agenda.
The last Trump-Xi meeting came in South Korea in October, and less than two months later Congress approved an estimated $11.15 billion arms sale for Taiwan, a move that drew a strong rebuke from Beijing. Henrietta Levin said the meeting with Trump helps “reorient U.S. views,” while Kurt Campbell said the face-to-face encounter removes a degree of uncertainty from Beijing’s perspective.
Still, there is little sign that Trump is preparing to ease the pressure. Derek Scissors said, “I really don’t see much U.S. pressure coming,” adding that China may already have its own reason to keep the Iran dispute from worsening. “I think that China has an obvious interest in the war being settled and the Strait [of Hormuz] being open. So, they may have an incentive without any resort to U.S. pressure,” he said.
That leaves this week’s meeting with a familiar mix of public camaraderie and hard bargaining. Trump has said, “I’m going to have that discussion with President Xi,” and added, “President Xi would like us not to, and I’ll have that discussion.”
