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A war-weary globe watches closely as rivals Trump and Xi prepare for Beijing face-off

2026-05-13T04:01:27.575Z / CNN

Analysis by Simone McCarthy, Betsy Klein, Kristen Holmes, Sylvie Zhuang

Updated May 13, 2026, 12:22 AM ET
PUBLISHED May 13, 2026, 12:01 AM ET

Chinese President Xi Jinping greets U.S. President Donald Trump at a welcoming ceremony November 9, 2017 in Beijing, China.

Thomas Peter/Pool/Getty Images

Beijing/Washington DC—

US President Donald Trump’s high-stakes visit to China this week is a historic opportunity for the world’s two largest economies to reframe their trade relationship — and the tone of their rivalry.

But to get there, he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping must navigate tricky frictions ranging from tech, trade, critical minerals and Taiwan in two days of meetings that are now also deeply overshadowed by the US war with Iran.

The trip is the first from an American president to China since Trump visited in 2017 — but it’s playing out in front of a vastly different backdrop.

Trump and Xi now sit on different sides of an increasingly fractured geopolitical landscape, especially as China’s close partner Iran remains defiant in the face of Washington’s demands to end the war.

And China has changed too: smarting from the first incarnation of Trump’s trade and tech war, Beijing has upgraded its export juggernaut and transformed itself into a high-tech power in its own right.

Trump will be sitting down with a counterpart who has tightened his grip on authority, extending his rule past China’s official term limits. Meanwhile, Xi faces a leader who has made a sweeping overhaul to US foreign policy, while serving in what US law dictates is his final term.

Here are the priorities for both men going into their heavily anticipated meeting, which will also include the kind of pomp and circumstance Trump enjoys, such as a tour of the Temple of Heaven and a state banquet.

How the two personalities manage these dynamics will have significant implications not just for the relationship between the world’s established and rising superpower but an international system with deep ties to both.

What Trump wants: the view from Washington

President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping hold a meeting on the sidelines of an international summit in South Korea October 30, 2025.

Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

For Trump, it’s not the trip he envisioned, but the trip he gets.

A landmark meeting in South Korea last October helped ease tensions between Trump and Xi, with agreements made toward a major trade deal and tariff relief.

A follow-up summit planned for March was expected to focus on economic priorities and national security. And while there are plans for new trade deals, the US war with Iran has complicated Trump’s strategy.

Not wanting Iran to loom over his trip, Trump delayed his China visit to give the war — which he said would be resolved in a matter of weeks — time to play out.

But that war is now in its third month and a peace deal remains elusive. Trump on Monday said the monthlong ceasefire with Iran is on “massive life support.”

And now, amid a historic global energy crisis, there are major questions about whether Trump can get what he wants while the US remains embroiled in the conflict.

Asked why Trump is moving forward with this trip, a senior US official said, “Why would he not continue with all the other duties that he has as a US president?”

But it’s Iran that is likely to dominate the conversation.

Vessels in the Strait of Hormuz earlier this month.

Stringer/Reuters

Trump — whom CNN reported is more seriously considering a resumption of major combat operations than he has in recent weeks — said Tuesday that he plans to have a “long talk” about Iran with Xi.

“I think he’s been relatively good, to be honest with you,” Trump told CNN’s Alayna Treene when asked his message to the Chinese leader on Iran while leaving the White House.

“You look at the blockade, no problem. They get a lot of their oil from that area. We’ve had no problem. And he’s been a friend of mine,” Trump added.

But the closure of the critical oil thoroughfare has major implications for China, the largest consumer of Iranian oil, as well as many key US allies in Asia.

Trump and Xi’s meeting will come days after Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi traveled to Beijing, underscoring the ties between the two countries. US intelligence has indicated that China was preparing to deliver new air defense systems to Iran, CNN has previously reported. China has denied providing weapons to Iran during the conflict.

Trump is expected to encourage Xi to push Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, as well as to agree to a suitable peace deal.

“I would expect the president to apply pressure,” the US official said, pointing to recent sanctions announcements.

On the eve of Trump’s trip, the US Treasury Department blacklisted 12 people and entities for their roles enabling the “sale and shipment of Iranian oil” to China.

But some US officials have expressed concern that Trump is walking into a meeting in which Xi holds many of the cards — and that the Chinese leader may use that leverage to get what he wants on an issue important to Beijing: Taiwan.

“He’ll bring up Taiwan, I think, more than I will,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday.

Xi might use the opportunity to try and negotiate reduced US arms support for Taiwan, those US officials fear.

“Well, I’m going to have that discussion with President Xi. President Xi would like us not to, and we’ll have that discussion,” Trump said when asked whether the US should still be selling weapons to Taiwan.

But the senior US official emphasized they didn’t “expect to see any changes in US policy.”

Under the “One China” policy, the US acknowledges China’s position that Taiwan is part of China but has never officially recognized the Communist Party’s claim to the island. The US is bound by law to provide Taiwan with defensive weapons but has remained intentionally ambiguous on whether it would intervene militarily in the event of a Chinese attack.

An outdoor screen in Beijing shows a news coverage of China’s military drills around Taiwan in May 2024.

Jade Gao/AFP/Getty Images

Trade will still be on the agenda, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent set to join his counterpart He Lifeng for a meeting Wednesday in Seoul ahead of the leaders’ summit. Also traveling as part of the US delegation are more than a dozen business leaders, including Apple CEO Tim Cook and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, the one-time leader of Trump’s efforts to slash the federal government.

Trump and Xi are expected to unveil a series of agreements on aerospace, agriculture and energy, and discuss a US-China board of trade and a US-China board of investment, according to White House principal deputy press secretary Anna Kelly.

Trump is also expected to raise the topic of artificial intelligence, with the US and China locked in a race to build the most sophisticated and advanced AI technology.

And the US president noted Monday that he’ll bring up the fates of both former Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison earlier this year, and Pastor Ezra Jin, who was swept up in a mass crackdown across various congregations and Chinese cities.

“I brought it up before – Jimmy Lai. I brought it up. The other one I just heard about this morning, actually,” Trump said.

Media mogul Jimmy Lai, founder of Apple Daily, is detained by the national security unit in Hong Kong on August 10, 2020.

Tyrone Siu/Reuters

What Xi wants: the view from Beijing

The sense that China holds a strong hand going into the talks is palpable on the Chinese side.

Beijing sees Washington’s costly conflict with Iran and the impending US midterm elections as a unique opportunity to capitalize, Chinese sources told CNN in recent weeks.

China’s most immediate priority is shoring up the trade truce reached in South Korea. But Beijing will be ready to use its vast domestic market and dominance over the rare earth supply chain to push for deeper objectives.

That could include asking the US to ease restrictions on high-end technology exports, according to Chinese sources and regional diplomats familiar with Beijing’s thinking.

China is expected to push the US to adjust its Taiwan policy to express “opposition” (instead of non-support) to Taiwan independence and reduce arms sales to the island. Beijing also wants its companies, including electric vehicle makers, to have more access to the US market and to be removed from blacklists.

Within China, Trump is viewed as eager to present tangible wins to American voters, such as big Chinese purchases of US agricultural products and Boeing jets — which could open up even more leverage for Beijing to push its agenda.

And the American president is landing in a much different China than when he made his last visit nearly a decade ago. In the face of mounting tensions with the US – much of it kicked off by the first Trump administration – Beijing has marshalled a vast, top-down push to shore up self-sufficiency across supply chains and high tech.

Humanoid robots are displayed at Beijing’s Innovation Center of Humanoid Robotics in March.

Adek Berry/AFP/Getty Images

Electric vehicles are seen on an assembly line at a BYD factory in Zhengzhou city in China’s Henan province last year.

Qilai Shen/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Electric cars await export at a port in Yantai, in eastern China’s Shandong province in 2024.

AFP/Getty Images/File

China’s ability to weather volatility – from the current global energy shock to the trade turmoil of the administration’s “liberation day” tariffs – now stands, in Beijing’s eyes, as a vindication of those efforts.

The rise of its homegrown tech in AI, green energy and robotics underscores what Beijing has long implied, and some US analysts have long feared: US restrictions will push China to grow stronger and less dependent on America, even in high tech.

For Xi, the bottom line is that a stable relationship with the US will boost China’s rise. And with Trump in his homecourt, Xi’s goal is to use the leaders’ personal rapport to reduce frictions where possible.

“Head-of-state diplomacy plays an irreplaceable role in providing strategic guidance for China-US relations,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said earlier this week.

But the Iran war presents a new complication – and potential opportunity – for Xi, who will need to navigate the US urgency to find an offramp to the conflict.

China has sought to portray itself as a potential peacemaker, which Xi may look to parlay into goodwill with his American counterpart.

Beijing is aware that Trump’s more transactional approach toward them is at odds with US-China hawks who’d like to see the president take a harder line.

There are a “lot of advantages to us getting along,” Trump said in a radio interview Tuesday.

And if the visit yields more stability between the two superpowers, China will view it as a success.

CNN’s John Liu contributed to this report.