Trump’s trip to meet Xi Jinping in China rescheduled for May due to Iran war

Donald Trump will meet Xi Jinping in May during the US president’s first visit to China in eight years, a closely watched trip that had been postponed due to the Iran war.Trump was initially slated to travel next week, but will now visit Beijing on 14 and 15 May, he wrote in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday. Trump said he would host the Chinese leader in a reciprocal visit in Washington later this year.Trump wrote: “Our Representatives are finalizing preparations for these Historic Visits. I look very much forward to spending time with President Xi in what will be, I am sure, a Monumental Event.”The Chinese embassy said it had no information to offer on the visit. Beijing usually only gives detailsof Xi’s schedulea few days in advance.The long-scheduled trip – and Washington’s broader effort to reset relations in the Asia Pacific region – have repeatedly been overtaken by events.In February, the supreme court curtailed the US president’s power to impose tariffs, a source of leverage for Trump in negotiations with the US’s third-biggest trading partner.The launch of Trump’s joint military operation with Israel against Iran on 28 February introduced a fresh point of tension with Beijing, Tehran’s main oil buyer.Trump’s last trip to China, in 2017, was the most recent by a US president. Trump’s visit in May will be the first in-person talks between the two leaders since an October meeting in South Korea where they agreed on a trade truce.The two-day trip will combine the lavish pomp and circumstance that has become a feature of Trump’s trips abroad with hard-nosed diplomacy.While the two sides could strike goodwill agreements in Beijing on trade in agriculture and airplane parts, they are also expected to discuss areas of deep tension such as Taiwan, where little progress is expected.Trump has dramatically ramped up US arms sales to Taiwan during his second term in office. The moves have angered Beijing, which claims the democratically governed island as its own territory.It is not clear whether the war with Iran, which has shaken the global economy, will be settled by the time of the Xi-Trump meeting.Trump has sought support from the world’s major oil consumers, including China, to help counter Iran’s efforts to close the Strait of Hormuz. Trump’s request for assistance so far has largely been rebuffed. China, which imported about 12m barrels of oil daily during the first two months of 2026, the most in the world, has not directly responded to his request.Asked on Wednesday whether the war could wind down in time for the trip to China, Karoline Leavitt, the White House spokesperson, said: “We’ve always estimated approximately four to six weeks. So you could do the math on that.”Leavitt also said Trump and Xi spoke about rescheduling the trip and that Xi understood the reasons for doing so. “President Xi understood that it’s very important for the president to be here throughout these combat operations right now,” she said.