Trump seeks to delay meeting with China’s Xi by ‘a month or so’

By Bo Erickson and Trevor Hunnicutt

WASHINGTON, March 16 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said he is seeking to delay a highly anticipated trip to China in early April by about a month because of the Iran war.

“We’ve requested that we delay it a month or so,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

China’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump’s requested delay in his scheduled March 31-April 2 trip to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping underscores how the Iran war has upended his foreign policy agenda.

It also risks magnifying tensions between Washington and Beijing, as the Mideast crisis has joined trade and Taiwan among the spectrum of issues separating the world’s two biggest economies.

TRUMP’S REQUESTS FOR ASSISTANCE WITH IRAN

Iran has responded to joint U.S.-Israeli attacks by threatening to fire on vessels moving through the strait, through which its own ships continue to transit at near-normal rates. Trump has called on numerous nations, including China, to help ships safely transit the Strait of Hormuz, where one-fifth of the world’s oil transits on a daily basis.

Trump’s request for assistance so far has largely been rebuffed. China, which imported around 12 million barrels of oil daily in the first two months of 2026, most in the world, has not directly responded to his request.

“The president looks forward to visiting China,” spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters. “The dates may be moved. As commander-in-chief, it’s his number-one priority right now to ensure the continued success of this operation, Epic Fury. So we’ll keep you posted on the dates as soon as we can.”

On Sunday, Trump told the Financial Times he might postpone the meeting if China did not help unblock the Strait of Hormuz.

Iranian crude oil has kept flowing through the Strait of Hormuz at a near-normal pace, a Reuters review of shipping data shows, though overall exports from the Middle East have dropped more than 60% since the war started. Most of Iran’s oil exports go to China, according to U.S. Energy Department data.

TRAVELING ABROAD ‘MAY NOT BE OPTIMAL’ AMID WAR

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Monday that Trump may need to delay the trip due to coordinating the war effort – not because of the request that China help police the strait or because of any trade disagreements.

“The President wants to remain in DC to coordinate the war effort,” Bessent said. “Traveling abroad at a time like this may not be optimal.”

Beijing has not specified dates for Trump’s visit and normally does not detail Xi’s schedule far in advance.

PREPARATIONS FOR TRUMP-XI MEETING MOVE AHEAD

Preparations for the meeting at its originally scheduled date are ongoing. On Monday, Bessent was in Paris for talks with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng aimed at teeing up trade and other agreements for Trump and Xi in Beijing.

In those talks, which began on Sunday, the Chinese showed openness to potential additional purchases of U.S. agricultural goods including poultry, beef and non-soybean row crops, one source said before the second day of meetings. They also discussed the flow of rare earth minerals largely controlled by China and new approaches to manage trade and investment between the countries.

Spokespersons for the U.S. Treasury and the U.S. Trade Representative’s office declined to characterize the talks.

“Head of state diplomacy plays an irreplaceable role ​in providing strategic guidance to China-U.S. relations,” said Lin Jian, a Chinese ​foreign ministry spokesperson, when asked about Trump’s remarks over the weekend during a regular press conference. Both sides are communicating ⁠about the trip, Lin added.

(Reporting by Bo Erickson, Katharine Jackson, Nandita Bose, Susan Heavey, David Lawder and Trevor Hunnicutt, editing by David Ljunggren, David Gaffen and David Gregorio)