Trump suggests he may delay China trip, but Bessent says it’s not to pressure on Strait of Hormuz
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump may delay his China trip due to the Iran war, but Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday it’s not to pressure Beijing on the Strait of Hormuz.
Bessent said any delay to Trump’s month-end trip to Beijing would not be because of disagreements over the Iran war or efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a bending waterway that’s crucial for global shipping.
)“If the meeting for some reason was rescheduled, it would be rescheduled because of logistics,” the secretary said on CNBC. “The president wants to remain in D.C. to coordinate the war, and traveling abroad at a time like this may not be optimal.”
Trump has suggested he may delay the trip as he seeks to ramp up the pressure on Beijing to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz and calm oil prices that have soared during the Iran war.
Uncertainty shows wide effect of Iran war
In an interview Sunday with the Financial Times, Trump said China’s reliance on oil from the Middle East means it ought to help with a new coalition he is trying to put together to get oil tanker traffic moving through the strait after Iran’s threats have throttled global flows of oil.
The Republican president said “we’d like to know” before the trip whether Beijing will help.
“We may delay,” he said in the interview.
The uncertainty highlights just how much the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran have reshaped global politics in the past two weeks. Calling off the face-to-face visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping could have its own major economic consequences: Relations between Washington and Beijing have been fraught as both sides have threatened the other with steep tariffs over the past year.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said it was possible Trump’s China trip could be delayed.
“At this point, the president looks forward to visiting China. The dates may be moved,” Leavitt told reporters at the White House on Monday. “As commander in chief, it’s his number one priority right now to ensure the continued success of this Operation Epic Fury,” the name of the U.S. effort against Iran.
Bessent says US will reaffirm ‘stability’ of China relationship
A Foreign Ministry spokesperson in Beijing said only that China and the U.S. have maintained communication on Trump’s visit. “Head-of-state diplomacy plays an irreplaceable strategic guiding role in China-U.S. relations,” Lin Jian said at a daily briefing.
Bessent made his comments in Paris, where he was meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng for a new round of trade talks that were meant to pave the way for Trump’s Beijing trip. The U.S. and China have declared a truce that has prevented both sides from levying dueling tariffs, but the stakes remain high.
“We had a very good two days here,” Bessent said, adding a statement “reaffirming the stability” between the two countries would be issued “in the next few days.”
Bessent explicitly urged investors not to react negatively should Trump put off his trip.
In the early days of the Iran conflict, Trump had said U.S. Navy vessels would escort oil tankers through the strait, which connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman, and downplayed the threat posed by Iran. But as oil prices soared, he and his administration have been forced to consider new options — including the idea, broached this weekend, for other countries to join the push with their own warships. So far, none has yet formally heeded the call.
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he returned to Washington from a weekend in Florida that the U.S. had spoken to “about seven” nations about offering military support. He wouldn’t say which ones, though, and demurred when he was asked directly about China — though he subsequently suggested that he’d made such an offer to Beijing.
“China’s an interesting case study,” he said, noting its reliance on Gulf oil. “So I said, ‘Would you like to come in’ and we’ll find out. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t.”
The administration downplays oil price spikes
War in Iran has sent the price of oil skyrocketing, which has raised the price Americans pay at the pump, just as the midterm election season begins to heat up.
Bessent downplayed the war’s impact on oil prices and accused the media of “trying to make it into some crisis that it’s not.” Echoing Trump, the secretary insisted prices would come down after the conflict ends.
“I don’t know how many weeks it will be, but on the other side of this, the world will be safer, and we will be better supplied,” Bessent said on CNBC.
He said the Treasury Department has not traded oil futures to try to cap prices. Asked whether it would going forward, the secretary said: “I’m not sure under what authority or what auspices” that would happen.
Trump’s Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Bloomberg Television over the weekend that the administration has talked about that strategy.
Beijing faces its own economic pressures
China recently lowered its 2026 target for growth slightly to 4.5% to 5%, its slowest projected growth since 1991 — meaning prolonged disruptions in the strait could have long-term impacts for Beijing as well.
Lin, at the briefing in Beijing, did not respond directly to questions about Trump’s call for outside help in the strait. He noted the impact on goods and energy trade and repeated his government’s call for an end to the fighting.
“China once again calls on all parties to stop military actions immediately, avoid further escalation of tensions, and prevent instability in the region from having a greater impact on global economic development,” he said.
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Associated Press writer Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed.