Trump may delay his China trip unless Beijing helps push Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz

America’s Donald Trump is now threatening to push back his planned trip to China unless Beijing helps get the Strait of Hormuz open again, tying a major trade meeting to the oil route at the center of US and Israel’s war in Iran.

Speaking to the Financial Times on Sunday, Trump said he wanted China to help unblock the strait before he travels to Beijing for talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in what would have been a historic summit scheduled for March 31 to April 2.

He said two weeks was “a long time” and made clear that Washington wanted a better sense of where things stood before any trip happened. “We may delay,” Trump said, without explaining how long any delay could be.

His comments came while his Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is meeting Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Paris for talks linked to the summit.

Trump links the China summit to oil flows through Hormuz

The Trump-Jinping summit would have been the first by a sitting US president to China since Trump traveled there in 2017 during his first term.

It would also come just five months after Trump and Xi met in Busan, South Korea, where both sides agreed to a one-year truce in their trade fight.

That truce followed a brutal tariff battle last year, when both countries hit each other with duties that briefly jumped into triple digits. Earlier this month, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the agenda for the coming exchange was already “on the table.”

Speaking aboard Air Force One on Sunday, Trump said China gets about 90% of its oil through the Strait of Hormuz and said that gave Beijing every reason to help reopen it.

The White House has been pressing countries in Europe and Asia, including China, to help restore traffic through the chokepoint.

Still, China has spent the last 20 years trying to protect itself from exactly this kind of shock, buying crude from more places, building up strategic reserves, and working hard to reduce the damage a long disruption could cause.

In January, Beijing was estimated to have about 1.2 billion barrels of crude in onshore storage, enough to cover demand for roughly three to four months.

There is also a difference between oil passing through Hormuz and China’s total energy picture. Nomura estimates that flows through the passage account for just 6.6% of China’s total energy consumption.

At the same time, satellite imagery tracked by maritime research firms showed that Iran has kept sending large volumes of crude to China since the war started late last month.

Iran calls Trump a liar yet again as Washington threatens more pressure

Trump also said the United States is in contact with Iran, but he said he was not convinced Tehran was ready for serious talks to end the war.

On Sunday, US officials dealing with market fears over high oil prices said they expected the conflict with Iran to end within weeks and predicted energy prices would come down after that. Iran, though, gave no sign it was backing off.

Over the weekend, Trump threatened more strikes on Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export hub. He also said he was not ready to agree to a deal that would end the war that has shut the strait.

On Friday, Trump had said that the US Navy would “soon” begin escorting oil tankers through the region. Trump has also said before that Iran wants to negotiate.

But Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi rejected that claim on Sunday during an interview on CBS’ Face the Nation and once again called US and Israeli leaders liars.

“We have never asked for a ceasefire, and we have never asked even for negotiations,” Abbas said. “We are ready to defend ourselves for as long as it takes.” He went further and said Iran had no reason to trust talks with Washington after being attacked during earlier diplomacy.

“It’s not a war of survival. We are stable and strong enough,” Abbas said. “We don’t see any reason why we should talk with Americans, because we were talking with them when they decided to attack us, and that was for the second time.”

The smartest crypto minds already read our newsletter. Want in? Join them.