Trump Delays Summit with Xi as Trade Talks Collide with Iran War Fallout

U.S. President Donald Trump and PRC President, CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping at G20 Buenos Aires Summit, before the working dinner. Courtesy of WikiMedia Commons.

On March 15, 2026, economic officials from both the U.S. and China wrapped up the first of two days of talks in Paris to establish a trade truce, originally intended to clear the path for an eventual summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the end of March.

The two sides met for more than six hours on March 15, 2026, at the Paris headquarters of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The club consists of 38 mostly wealthy democracies, of which China is not a member, as it considers itself a developing country.

During the discussion, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng discussed a broad range of topics, including the shifting nature of U.S. tariffs, Chinese-sourced rare-earth minerals and magnets, the question of how American buyers would procure these materials, American high-tech export controls, and a tentative agreement to have China purchase more U.S. agricultural products.

Trump expects that the trade talks may result in Beijing committing to major commitments to order new Boeing jets, purchase more U.S. liquefied natural gas and soybeans, with the expectation that the Chinese government would grant some concessions on U.S. export controls, Scott Kennedy explained, a China economics expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

On the other hand, China hopes the trade summit will be the emblem of a “landmark year” in its relationship with its biggest geopolitical and trade competitor, the United States. China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that while there were many disagreements between the two, the Trump-Xi summit would hopefully provide a level of “strategic guarantee” for the bilateral relationship and prevent any miscalculation.

The bilateral talks involving Bessent, He, Greer, and China trade negotiator Li Chenggang came amid a string of similar meetings in Geneva, London, Stockholm, Madrid, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, last year to ease bilateral trade tensions that threatened to bring about a near collapse of economic relations between the two largest economies.

Since Trump’s return to the Oval Office, the U.S. has imposed a 145% tariff on Chinese products, with Beijing following suit and imposing a 125% tariff on U.S. goods in a show of defiance. 

The reasoning behind these astronomical tariffs is due to Trump’s longstanding belief that tariffs were the best method to combat what Trump accuses China of engaging in longstanding unfair trade practices such as intellectual property theft, as well as addressing the trade deficit between the two nations.

The talk was especially important, as the U.S. intended the meeting to instill a sense of stability in the relationship between the U.S. and China. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, who is a participant in the talks, said on March 13, 2026 had desired for the meeting to act as a conduit towards a healthier bilateral relationship between the two nations.

“We want to make sure that we continue to get the ​rare earths we need for our manufacturing base, that they keep buying the kinds of things they should be buying from us, and that the leaders have a chance to get ⁠together and make sure that the relationship is going the way we want it to go,” Greer told CNBC before departing for Paris.

However, all of this changed when, a day later, on March 16, 2026, President Trump asked Beijing to postpone the much-anticipated Trump-Xi summit due to happen in Beijing, as Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that afternoon that he wanted to delay the summit by a month in order to contain the fallout from the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. Trump was originally scheduled to depart for Beijing in about two weeks.

While, to some extent, Chinese analysts have chalked this up to Trump prizing unpredictability and his preconceived belief that keeping the other side off balance is the secret to victory. This goes directly against the nature of the Chinese government, which prefers to script every detail, including meetings between Xi and his counterparts, well in advance.

However, one must consider that Trump’s push for a month-long delay comes amidst the backdrop of the White House dealing with the dramatic fallout from the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, including Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, as retaliation for the U.S.-Israeli joint bombings on the nation’s territory.

For context, the Strait of Hormuz comprises 20 percent of the world’s oil passages. Since its closure, the event has had a major impact on crude prices, with expectations that oil will soar in the U.S. just months before critical midterm elections. 

Conventional wisdom dictates that the governing party occupying the White House, in this case the Republican Party, is expected to lose seats in the House of Representatives. The picture is more nuanced in the Senate as a sizable chunk of seats are in states Trump won in the 2024 presidential election.

With the Iran war dragging on, Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, rose by 10% to $119 a barrel at one point before slipping back to $110, a gain of 3.3%. Crude prices have soared by 60% since the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran started on February 28, 2026.

Despite this, Bessent has denied a connection between the U.S.-Israel war on Iran and Trump’s postponement of the meeting with Xi, saying that potential delay would be due to “logistics.”

“If the meetings are delayed, it wouldn’t be delayed because the president demanded that China police the Strait of Hormuz,” Mr. Bessent told CNBC’s Brian Sullivan.

On the Chinese side, one Chinese official familiar with the matter told The Washington Post that they do not know when the new date will be, and that Beijing has not publicly confirmed the end-of-March Trump-Xi summit, which is common in Chinese diplomatic practice due to the potential for last-minute changes.

Regardless of when the new date for the Trump-Xi summit is set, there is no denying that, fresh from dealing with the fallout from the Iran war, Washington would likely have different priorities on its plate, with trade talks with Beijing taking a back seat.

There is no illusion between the two that trade frictions can be resolved any time soon, as both countries seek to contain the fallout from the U.S.-Israel war on Iran amidst skyrocketing oil prices, geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, and a shifting global order in which China seeks to gain the upper hand in the international sphere as the U.S. increasingly shirks away from its global responsibilities.