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President Donald Trump has decided to delay his trip to China by “a month or so,” reportedly due to the Iran war.
The Chinese government indignantly insisted that Trump’s delay had nothing to do with China’s refusal to protect global shipping through the Strait of Hormuz against Iranian attacks.
“We noted that the U.S. has publicly made clarifications on the misguided media reports, calling them completely ‘false.’ The U.S. side stressed that the visit is not linked to the issue over the Strait of Hormuz,” sniffed Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian on Tuesday when a reporter asked if Trump’s delay was related to the strait issue.
“China and the U.S. remain in communication on President Trump’s visit to China, including the dates. I have nothing to add at the moment,” Lin said in response to further questions.
President Trump said on Sunday he might delay his March 31 trip to Beijing due to the Iran war, and he hinted in an interview with the Financial Times (FT) that he would be more likely to postpone the trip if China did not help to secure the Strait of Hormuz.
“It’s only appropriate that people who are the beneficiaries of the strait will help to make sure that nothing bad happens there,” Trump contended.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday said “the dates may be moved” because Trump’s “number one priority right now is to ensure the continued success of this Operation Epic Fury.” Leavitt and other administration officials did not explicitly link the decision to China’s lack of assistance with the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump said later on Monday that “we’ve requested that we delay it for a month or so.”
“We’re speaking to China. I’d love to, but because of the war, I want to be here. I have to be here, I feel,” the president said at a White House news conference.
“I’m looking forward to being with them. We have a very good relationship. But because of the war, there’s no tricks to it either,” he said.
“We’ve got a war going on. I think it’s important that I be here. So it could be that we delay a little bit, not much,” he said.
Trump envisioned a delay of “five or six weeks” on Tuesday.
“We’re working with China. They were fine with it,” he said.
Trump had previously complained about the Europeans and China failing to step up and defend the Strait of Hormuz, noting that China was especially dependent on the flow of oil through the strait. On Tuesday, he seemed much more upset with the Europeans for making a “very foolish mistake” by declining to send minesweepers.
“Everyone agrees with us, but they don’t want to help. And we, you know, we as the United States have to remember that because we think it’s pretty shocking,” he remarked.
Chinese state media downplayed the delay in Trump’s visit to Beijing, instead focusing on the productive talks held on Sunday and Monday between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Paris.
China’s Xinhua news agency reported that Bessent and He discussed “tariff arrangements, promoting bilateral trade and investment, and maintaining existing consultation consensus.”
He said the “outcomes” agreed to with Bessent have “injected greater certainty and stability into bilateral economic and trade relations as well as the global economy,” an optimistic prognosis that suggested Trump’s delayed trip to Beijing would not derail the progress that has been made.
China’s state-run Global Times wrote extensively of the concessions supposedly offered to China by Bessent and other U.S. negotiators, including a halt to the punitive tariffs Trump imposed over China’s fentanyl trade, and perhaps a bit less scrutiny of China’s forced labor practices.
In the telling of the Global Times, the U.S. has tacitly agreed that accusing China of using forced labor was an act of “wrongdoing” for which America must apologize. The article did not mention any reciprocal concessions offered to the U.S. for meeting these demands.
English (US)