Trump says he looks forward to Xi summit even as tensions mount

Catherine Lucey, Bloomberg News on May 4, 2026

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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said he’s looking forward to meeting Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, signaling that his plans for the high-stakes summit are still on despite fresh tensions between the world’s two largest economies.

“I’m going to go see President Xi in two weeks. I look forward to that,” Trump said Monday during a White House event. “Actually it’ll be a very important trip.”

The two leaders are slated to meet next week — on May 14-15 in Beijing — with high stakes for the U.S. and China as they seek to navigate challenges on trade and other fronts including Taiwan and the war in Iran. U.S. and Chinese officials have been preparing for the summit for months, including discussions over creating a new bilateral mechanism to help manage economic ties.

The Middle East conflict has already delayed the meeting once, sparking anxiety in financial markets that it would add to an already complicated relationship. U.S.-China ties largely stabilized after last year’s tit-for-tat tariffs sparked worries about a global downturn.

The Iran war has brought fresh strains. The nine-week conflict has choked off the flow of energy through the Strait of Hormuz, leaving crude importers such as China working to prevent any domestic shortages. U.S. efforts to ramp up pressure on Tehran to bring an end to the war have led to sanctions on refiners in China that process Iranian oil.

China has now ordered companies not to abide by U.S. sanctions on private refiners linked to the Iranian oil trade, an act of defiance that will test the U.S. sanctions system.

Trump has also questioned if Beijing is helping Iran in the war. He has said the U.S. Navy had intercepted a “gift” bound for Iran, without providing more details.

The U.S. has also been pressuring China along with other economies that rely on oil imports to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but Beijing as well as U.S. allies have balked at those calls. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday urged China to join an American operation to escort ships through the strait.

“Let’s see them step up with some diplomacy and get the Iranians to open the strait,” Bessent said on Fox News.

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(With assistance from Courtney Subramanian and Jennifer A. Dlouhy.)