Trump says U.S. wants to delay China trip by ‘a month or so’ due to Iran war

President Donald Trump said Monday that the U.S. requested his trip to China be delayed by “a month or so,” citing the war in Iran as a reason.

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he didn’t know whether he still planned to travel to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the end of the month as previously scheduled.

“I’d love to, but because of the war, I want to be here. I have to be here, I feel. And so we’ve requested that we delay it a month or so,” Trump said.

“It’s very simple. 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 added.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding Trump’s comments.

The Trump administration began to cast doubt on the trip earlier in the day, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent saying it might not take place as previously scheduled. Bessent said any delay was not a tactic to pressure Beijing to get involved with the Strait of Hormuz.

Bessent appeared to be referencing an article by the Financial Times, which reported that Trump said in an interview with the publication that he wanted China to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz and that he wanted to know before the planned summit.