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Washington — President Trump headed to China Tuesday for a highly anticipated summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, following through with a meeting Mr. Trump delayed due to the war with Iran.
Trade will be a major topic for the two leaders, but the tenuous situation in Iran and supply chain bottleneck in the Persian Gulf will be inescapable topics. The president said Monday they’ll also discuss energy and Taiwan. Xi is looking to bring Taiwan fully back under Beijing’s control without intervention from the United States.
Mr. Trump spoke highly of Xi ahead of their meeting.
“He’s a great gentleman. I find him to be an amazing, amazing 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 tremendous guy. And we get along well, and you see how we do — we do a lot of business with China, making a lot of money. We’re making a lot of money.”
The president said on Truth Social last week that Xi would give him a “big, fat hug” when they meet.
Mr. Trump left the White House Tuesday for the summit and will arrive in Beijing Wednesday. Beijing is 12 hours ahead of Washington.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, filmmaker Brett Ratner and Fox News personality Sean Hannity were among the guests who were seen appearing to accompany the president to Beijing. The invite list had also included Apple’s Tim Cook, Blackrock’s Larry Fink and Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon, among others, according to a White House official. It was not immediately clear if any of those people were also on the trip.
What Washington and Beijing want
Both China and the U.S. want to ensure their relationship is stabilized, and neither country has much of an interest in upsetting it, foreign policy experts said.
“Their top concern really is about how to stabilize the U.S.-China relationship so that the two sides can engage in a longer-term strategic competition for an indefinite period of time without accidental spillover to militarize the conflict,” said Zongyuan Zoe Liu, senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
For both sides, “The summit itself, I’d say, is already the deliverable,” Liu said.
How the war with Iran may factor into their meetings
Henrietta Levin, a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies who focuses on China, said China already believed it was in a strong position relative to the U.S. before the Iran war began.
“China already felt very confident going into this summit when the meeting was originally anticipated for March,” Levin said, adding, “They feel they won the 2025 trade war.”
“The war in Iran probably increases their confidence to some degree,” Levin said. “They see the U.S. distracted from Asia, burning through munitions stockpiles that are very important for building deterrence in Asia. So in some incremental way, Beijing may feel more confident now, but I think that’s a change in degree rather than a reorientation of China’s perspective, because they already felt so confident in their ability to manage the relationship.”
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 nice about this,” considering how much of China’s oil supply comes through the Strait of Hormuz. China is the world’s largest buyer of oil that comes through the strait, although it keeps its own reserves.
The congressional U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission says Chinese purchases account for about 90% of Iran’s exported oil, making it a huge supporter of Iran’s economy.
The president told Fox News last week he’s “not overly disappointed” with Beijing, but also said China “could help a lot more” on Iran, particularly in normalizing the Strait of Hormuz.
“He’s been very nice about this,” Mr. Trump said of Xi. “In all fairness, he gets like 60% of his oil from Hormuz. And he’s been, I think he’s been very respectful. We haven’t been challenged by China.”
But China has given little public indication that it wants to help the U.S. in Iran. And shortly before the president’s trip, the Treasury Department issued a new round of Iran sanctions that hit several China-based businesses, prompting China to insist it will protect those firms.
Trade is sure to be a topic
Trade may dominate the conversation between the two presidents, even as the 2025 trade war between the U.S. and China has calmed.
Both sides, Levin said, want to avoid a repeat of a tumultuous 2025.
The U.S. is focused on “quick-in commercial agreements” that are very narrow and have a concrete impact, Levin said — deals that the president can announce in a press release or on Truth Social. China’s goals are much broader and long term, she said.
“China is focused on strategic questions, the answer to which will shape the future of 21st century Asia,” Levin said.
Liu said China needs to talk about trade less than the U.S. does.
“They’ve shown that they know how to fight a trade war,” Liu said of China.
Tariffs on imports from China reached up to 145% last year, but after back-and-forth tariffs, the countries came to a truce of sorts and signed a one-year agreement suspending many trade penalties into late 2026. The Supreme Court in February struck down some of the president’s emergency tariffs, but some of the tariffs on Chinese imports remain in place.
Taiwan
President Trump told reporters Monday he expects Taiwan to come up in conversation with Xi because “it always comes up.”
“He’ll bring on Taiwan I think more than I will,” the U.S. president said.
Taiwan didn’t 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 said at the time, to the surprise of people in the foreign policy community. That was the last time the two leaders met in person.
Beijing, Levin said, hopes it will be able to convince the president to see the Taiwan issue through a lens more closely aligned with Beijing’s perspective — that Taiwan is rightfully Beijing’s.
While Secretary of State Marco Rubio and some other Republicans may have strong convictions about continuing to support Taiwan, “I think Beijing sees an opportunity here because President Trump has expressed a certain ambivalence in his rhetoric,” Levin said.
On Monday, a reporter asked the president in the Oval Office if the U.S. will still sell weapons to Taiwan.
“Well I’m going to have that discussion with President Xi,” he said. “President Xi would like us not to.”
China, said Liu, doesn’t want to have to make any concessions to a foreign nation on Taiwan.
“Their core logic is Taiwan is China’s domestic affair,” she said.
Levin said Americans should care about Taiwan for multiple reasons.
“Taiwan is the linchpin of the modern global economy,” Levin said. “There is no AI revolution without Taiwan. They play an irreplaceable role in global value chains that underpin so much of what we associate with modern life.”
Taiwan has critical semiconductor capabilities. Most of the world’s semiconductor technology comes from Taiwan.
For democratic reasons, too, Americans should care what happens to Taiwan, Levin said. This isn’t just about Taiwan, she said — how the U.S. handles the Taiwan situation will say a lot about the commitment of the U.S. to allies in Asia and Europe.
“Taiwan is a thriving democracy that shares American values,” Levin said. “That may not resonate with President Trump personally, but I think that more broadly, the question of whether the U.S. is capable and willing to maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is seen as a test of broader U.S. staying power in the Indo-Pacific and the world.”
