Donald Trump is delaying a visit to China while he focuses on his war against Iran. Xi Jinping won’t mind.
‘We got a war going on’
When Donald Trump told reporters at the White House yesterday that his planned visit to China at the end of this month would be delayed, he was at pains to avoid any suggestion that it was a snub to Xi Jinping.
“We’re speaking to China. I’d love to, but because of the war, I want to be here.
“There’s no tricks to it either. It’s just, it’s not like: ‘Oh gee, I’m waiting.’ It’s very simple. We 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.”
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The visit was due to take place from March 31st to April 2nd but Trump and Xi directly discussed the possibility of postponing it last week in view of the war in Iran. They agreed that there should be some flexibility on the timing but that the visit should go ahead.
“These are leader-to-leader conversations that are currently taking place, and if the trip is delayed then of course we will provide those dates,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News a few hours before Trump said he wanted to postpone the trip.
China does not usually announce the dates of such visits until a few days before they happen, even if they have been made public weeks earlier by the other side, and it never publicly confirmed that Trump was coming on March 31st. What matters most diplomatically to Beijing is the public affirmation that both Trump and Xi still want the visit to go ahead, and the delay might even be welcome.
The trip had already been scaled back so that Trump would only spend one full day in China and would not travel beyond Beijing. This was partly because of inadequate preparation on the American side but also because negotiations on the most important economic and political issues had yet to show signs of producing many deliverables.
Chinese and US negotiators ended two days of negotiations in Paris yesterday, with both sides saying they had agreed a preliminary consensus on some issues and that they would carry on talking. US treasury secretary Scott Bessent described the talks as very good, adding that relations between the two countries were stable.
“I will be issuing a statement in the next few days, and it will be reaffirming the stability in the relationship between the first and second-largest economies in the world,” he said.
China is unhappy about Washington’s attempt to replace the across-the-board “reciprocal” tariffs struck down by the supreme court by means of investigations into 60 countries citing failure to take action over forced labour.
The commerce ministry in Beijing pointed out yesterday that China had ratified 28 international labour conventions whereas the US had still not ratified the 1930 Forced Labour Convention and refused to be bound by international rules.
In Paris, the two sides talked about setting up a Board of Trade and a Board of Investment to provide a framework for resolving trade and investment issues. And despite their disagreements on everything from tariffs to the US attack on Iran, which China has condemned as unjustified and unlawful, the rhetoric between Beijing and Washington has been restrained.
This reflects the improvement in relations between Xi and Trump since they met in South Korea last October and agreed a year-long truce in their trade dispute.
But it is also a consequence of China’s tough response to Trump’s tariffs last year that persuaded the US president he must treat Xi with a level of respect and circumspection he feels no need to extend to America’s allies.
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