"We can't continue to allow China to rape our country, and that's what they're doing." Donald Trump said in May 2016. On May 13, he will board Air Force One for Beijing — seeking China's cooperation on Iran, rare earths, and a trade truce that holds through midterms. It is the first US presidential visit to China in nearly nine years and arguably the most contradictory, made by the president who has criticised China more fiercely than any of his predecessors, slapped it with tariffs that crossed 140%, and built an entire political identity on essentially beating Beijing.
And China has its concerns registered.
To understandthis summit,you have to understand the relationship's recent history — because it reads less like diplomacy and more like a high-stakes poker game where both men keep flipping the table.
Trump's second term opened with an extraordinary tariff escalation that pushed duties on Chinese goods past 140%. Beijing retaliated immediately, becoming the first major economy to do so. Then came the rare-earth gambit. China dominates global rare earth mining and processing, materials much needed to make iPhones, fighter jets, electric vehicles, and missile guidance systems. When Beijing arm-twisted Team Trump, saying that they would restrict exports of these items in April 2025 and again in October, Trump folded rather than credibly threaten escalation.
The result was a trade truce at the APEC summit in Busan last October. Under that deal, tariffs on Chinese goods were reduced, and US access to critical minerals was secured, yet Chinese exports to the US have still fallen 11% year-on-year in early 2026. China simply rerouted. China's exports grew 21.8% year-on-year in the first two months of 2026, reflecting a deliberate reorientation toward non-US markets. The tariff weapon hurt. It did not break.
"On balance, China looks to have more leverage," wrote Leah Fahy, senior China economist at Capital Economics, in a research note ahead of the summit. "Beijing has showed that it is prepared to wait out US pressure."
This summit was originally scheduled for early April. The Iran war, which the US, along with Israel, launched on February 28, forced a postponement of the globally watched meeting. That delay is itself a symbol of how the conflict has reshuffled every geopolitical card on the table.
The Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of global oil and gas once flowed, remains more or less choked – barring a few exits – by the conflict, triggering what analysts describe as the world's most severe energy shock in history. Oil prices have surged. Supply chains across Asia are strained. Countries are switching for energy-saving measures to contain the possible crisis fuelling out of this war, which is continuing in patches even after 73 days. And Washington, with a carrier strike group redirected from the Pacific and munitions pulled from South Korea, is fighting a war while simultaneously trying to manage its most complex bilateral relationship.
Beijing has positioned itself smartly in this space. Just days before President Donald Trump's arrival, China hosted Iran's foreign minister, raising hopes for a peace deal, sending oil prices lower, and fueling stock-market gains globally. The message was deliberate: Beijing holds the key to Hormuz, and it will not give it away for free.
The key question heading into the summit is whether Beijing is prepared to pressure Tehran into reopening the strait and what quid pro quo it would demand in return from Trump, who is possibly desperate to get out of the war he started. That is not a trade question. That is a geopolitical negotiation of the highest order, and it sits at the very centre of Trump's two days – May 13 and May 14 – in Beijing.
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