US President Donald Trump has threatened to postpone a long-planned summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping as he called on China to send warships to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, casting a new shadow over the relationship between the world’s two biggest economies.
Trump told the Financial Times on Sunday that he “may delay” the meeting, which is expected to start on March 31 in Beijing, if China does not answer his demand to help reopen the strait to shipping in the next two weeks. Trump said that waiting until the summit for an answer may be too long.
“We’d like to know before that,” he said.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on Monday Trump’s upcoming trip to China may be delayed because of the war against Iran.
“The dates may be moved,” Leavitt said. “As commander-in-chief, it’s his No. 1 priority right now to ensure the continued success of this operation, Epic Fury.”
China is one of several countries that have responded cautiously to Trump’s demands for naval assistance to thwart Iran’s efforts to block the strait, which is a transit route for about a fifth of the world’s oil. China, the biggest buyer of Iranian oil, has not responded directly to Trump’s remarks but has previously called for the cessation of hostilities.
A spokesman for China’s foreign ministry said on Monday that officials from both countries were discussing plans for the summit, and stressed that direct discussions between the leaders were essential.
“Head-of-state diplomacy plays an irreplaceable, strategic guiding role in China-US relations,” Lin Jian, the spokesman, told reporters at a daily briefing in Beijing.
In Paris, treasury secretary Scott Bessent was holding a second day of talks with He Lifeng, his Chinese counterpart, to finalise preparations for the meeting. They were scheduled to speak to reporters on Monday afternoon local time.
Bessent told CNBC on Monday that any delay would be because Trump chose to stay in the US during the war with Iran, rather than because of a disruption to US-China relations.
Xi invited Trump to visit Beijing when the leaders met in Busan, South Korea last October.
Since the start of the war in West Asia late last month, the price of oil has soared above $100 a barrel. Israel has targeted Iranian oil facilities and the US has hit military sites on Kharg Island, where about 90 per cent of Iran’s oil exports are processed. Iran has r
etaliated by effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz and launching missile and drone strikes against the oil infrastructure of US allies in the Persian Gulf.
Trump has previously said that the US and Israel did not require help from other countries to conduct their military campaign against Iran. But in recent days, he has criticised European and Asian allies for not participating in the attacks.
Beijing warning
China warned on Monday that Trump’s latest tariff moves could harm the countries’ trade relationship, at the end of high-level talks in Paris.
Li Chenggang, China’s international trade representative, said the Chinese side had expressed serious concern about the trade investigations into manufacturing in foreign countries that the Trump administration launched after the US Supreme Court struck down its earlier tariffs.
“We are concerned that the possible results of such investigations may interfere with or damage the hard-won and stable China-US economic and trade relations,” Li told journalists.
New York Times News Service and AP