Senior American officials announced on Sunday evening that US President Donald Trump will place the Iran issue at the center of his meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his upcoming visit to Beijing, which is set to begin this Wednesday.
The discussions come amid efforts to reach a new agreement with Tehran and growing concern in Washington over continued Chinese support for the Iranian regime.
In a press briefing in DC ahead of the visit, US officials said Trump had previously spoken with Xi about Iran, Russia, and Beijing’s economic and technological ties with both regimes. “The president has spoken several times with Xi Jinping about Iran and Russia, including the economic support China provides these regimes, as well as goods, components, and parts transferred to them, not to mention the possibility of weapons exports,” one American official said.
According to the officials, the Iran issue is expected to be one of the central topics at the summit between Trump and Xi, alongside trade, artificial intelligence, Taiwan, and the technological tensions between the two superpowers.
The officials also said that Trump is expected to demand that China apply additional pressure on Tehran.
“I expect the conversation on this specific issue to continue,” one official said. Another senior official addressed questions over why Trump is traveling to China while the Iran issue remains unresolved: “Why shouldn’t he travel? The President of the United States cannot focus on only one issue for weeks.” It was noted that the meeting had originally been scheduled for early April and was already postponed once because of the war.
Trump himself spoke with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday evening regarding the Iranian response. White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said, “I wouldn’t want to get ahead of the president regarding negotiations with Iran, but he posted on Truth this evening, and I recommend looking at it.”
Indeed, Trump published a post, which the White House pointed to as an initial response to the Iranian proposal: “Iran has been playing games with the United States, and the rest of the World, for 47 years (DELAY, DELAY, DELAY!)” Trump wrote.
“For 47 years, the Iranians have been “tapping” us along, keeping us waiting, killing our people with their roadside bombs, destroying protests… They will be laughing no longer!” Trump also attacked former President Barack Obama, claiming he gave Iran “Hundreds of Billions of Dollars” and a “very powerful new lease on life.” “They finally found the greatest SUCKER of them all, in the form of a weak and stupid American President,” Trump wrote.
Alongside the public pressure and threats, however, the White House is still simultaneously trying to advance the track of an agreement with Tehran. During the briefing, the American officials declined to go into details about the negotiations.
Netanyahu: War with Iran not over despite accomplishments
Meanwhile, Netanyahu made clear in an interview with the program 60 Minutes that, from his perspective, the campaign against Iran is far from over, even if significant achievements have been made. When asked whether the war against Iran had ended, Netanyahu replied that he thinks it achieved a great deal, but has not ended, because there is still nuclear material, including enriched uranium, that needs to be removed from Iran. He also explained that there are still enrichment sites that need to be dismantled and terrorist proxies supported by Iran.
Netanyahu added that Iran also still wants to produce ballistic missiles. Israel severely damaged a large portion of those capabilities, he said, but all of this still exists, and there is more work to do. When asked how highly enriched uranium could be removed from Iran, he said: “You go in and take it out.”
When asked whether he meant Israeli or American special forces, he replied that he was not going to discuss military means, but that Trump had told him that he wanted to enter Iran.
Netanyahu declined to elaborate on what would happen if no agreement is reached with Iran, but stressed the importance of the mission.
Officials in both Jerusalem and Washington fully understand that the Iranian issue is no longer merely a regional Middle East crisis, but part of the broader confrontation between the United States and China over global influence, technology, energy, and a new world order, a confrontation Trump intends to take with him directly to Beijing. He would prefer to arrive there with a signed agreement in hand with the Iranians, but at the moment, the cards are not falling that way.
