• US president wraps up China visit with no breakthrough on Iran, trade or rare earths
• Beijing says Iran conflict ‘should never have happened’; urges swift reopening of Hormuz
• Trump’s patience with Tehran ‘wearing thin’; claims he agreed to ceasefire as ‘favour to Pakistan’
• Says he is open to 20-year suspension of Iran’s nuclear programme if commitment is ‘real’
• US weighs lifting sanctions on Chinese companies that buy Iranian oil
BEIJING: US President Donald Trump left China on Friday with no major breakthroughs on trade or tangible help from Beijing to end the Iran war, despite two days spent heaping praise on his host, Xi Jinping.
Trump’s visit to America’s main strategic and economic rival, the first by a US president since his last trip in 2017, aimed for tangible results to lift his sagging approval ratings before the midterm elections in November.
He also stressed that his patience with Iran was running out and that Chinese President Xi Jinping had agreed that Tehran must reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but China gave no indication it would weigh in.
Trump said he was also considering whether to lift US sanctions on Chinese oil companies buying Iranian oil. China is the biggest buyer of Iranian oil. His comments shed no light on whether Beijing might use its influence with Tehran to end a conflict it said should never have started.
Meanwhile, Xi will visit the US in the fall at Trump’s invitation, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said. The summit was filled with pageantry, from goose-stepping soldiers to tours of a secret garden. But behind closed doors, Xi issued a stark warning to Trump that any mishandling of China’s top concern, Taiwan, could spiral into conflict.
During a huddle with reporters on the way back to the US, Trump said Xi told him he opposed Taiwan’s independence. “I heard him out. I didn’t make a comment ... I made no commitment either way,” said Trump.
He added that he will decide on a pending arms sale to Taiwan shortly, after speaking to “the person that right now is ... running Taiwan.” It was unclear if Trump was referring to Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te.
These were the first freewheeling remarks after two days in Beijing during which Trump stayed unusually restrained, with his off-the-cuff comments mainly focused on feting Xi’s warmth and stature.
“It’s been an incredible visit. I think a lot of good has come of it,” Trump told Xi at their final meeting at the Zhongnanhai complex, a former imperial garden.
While Trump searched for immediate business wins, such as a deal to sell Boeing jets that did not impress investors, Xi talked up a long-term reset and pact to maintain stable trade ties with Washington, underscoring their differing priorities.
No help on Iran
A brief US summary of Thursday’s talks highlighted what the White House called the leaders’ shared desire to reopen the Strait of Hormuz off Iran, and Xi’s interest in American oil purchases to pare its dependence on the Middle East.
But just before the leaders met for tea on Friday, China’s foreign ministry issued a blunt statement outlining its frustration with the war.
“This conflict, which should never have happened, has no reason to continue,” the ministry said, adding that China supported efforts to reach a peace deal in a war that had disrupted energy supplies and the global economy.
At Zhongnanhai, Trump said the leaders had discussed Iran and felt “very similar”, though Xi did not comment.
On the flight back home, Trump added that he wasn’t “asking for any favours” on Iran. Still, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had urged Beijing to use its leverage with Tehran to make a deal.
However, analysts doubt Xi will be willing to push Tehran hard or end support for its military, given Iran’s value to Beijing as a strategic counterweight to the US.
Iran, which has long denied that it intends to build a nuclear weapon, has refused to end its nuclear research or relinquish its hidden stockpile of enriched uranium, to Trump’s frustration.
“I am not going to be much more patient. They should make a deal,” Trump said in an interview aired on Thursday night on Fox News, suggesting the enriched uranium only needed to be secured by the US for “public relations” rather than practical necessity.
He stressed that the US agreed to a ceasefire with Iran “as a favour to Pakistan”. He maintained that “we really did the ceasefire at the request of other nations, I would not have been in favour of it”.
“We did it as a favour to Pakistan, they are terrific people, the field marshal, the prime minister.”
Trump also said he would accept Iran suspending its nuclear weapons programme for 20 years, as long as its commitment is “real”, according to Al Jazeera.
When asked if he had rejected Iran’s latest proposal, Trump replied in the affirmative. “I looked at it, and if I don’t like the first sentence, I just throw it away,” he told reporters.
Asked what the first sentence of the rejected proposal was, Trump says it was “unacceptable”. He added, “If they have any nuclear of any form, I don’t read the rest of it.”
Boeing shares slide
In another sign of a diminished scale of the summit, Trump’s readout did not mention the broad structural reforms on which previous presidents pressed Xi.
Unlike his previous trip in 2017, Trump did not discuss structural reforms, global economic governance or the international trading system with Xi, according to the readout.
Even the deal touted as the biggest single deliverable from the meetings underwhelmed. Boeing stock fell 4pc when Trump said that China would buy 200 Boeing jets, significantly fewer than the 500 that sources told Reuters had been under discussion.
He later added that the order could go up to 750 planes “if they do a good job with the 200”.
Trump also left without a resolution to the rare earths supply problem that has dogged ties since China imposed export controls on the vital minerals.
While the leaders struck a truce last October for Washington to lower tariffs in exchange for China keeping rare earths flowing, Beijing’s controls have caused shortages for US chipmakers and aerospace companies.
Published in Dawn, May 16th, 2026