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President Donald Trump said Tuesday he plans to hold a "long talk" about the Iran war with Chinese leader Xi Jinping when he arrives in Beijing this week, while brushing aside suggestions that Washington needs Chinese help to end the conflict.
"I don't think we need any help with Iran. We'll win it one way or another," Trump told CNN's Alayna Treene on the South Lawn of the White House. "We'll win it peacefully or otherwise."
Trump, who is set to depart Tuesday afternoon, offered a notably warm characterization of Xi ahead of their first face-to-face meeting in more than six months. Asked what message he would carry to Beijing on Iran, he pointed to China's behavior during the ongoing naval blockade of Iranian ports. "You look at the blockade, no problem," he said. "They get a lot of their oil from that area. We've had no problem. And he's been a friend of mine."
The summit, originally scheduled for March, was postponed after the United States and Israel launched large-scale strikes on Iran on Feb. 28. Iran subsequently attacked its neighbors in the Gulf region before a fragile ceasefire was announced last month.
Iran's effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has pushed global fuel prices sharply higher. American gasoline prices rose 5.4 percent in April from the previous month and more than 28 percent year-on-year, according to the Labor Department.
Trump and Xi last met in October 2025 in South Korea, where they agreed to pause a trade war that had seen U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods peak near 145 percent and Beijing threaten to restrict global rare earth exports. The arrangement secured China's continued supply of critical minerals to U.S. manufacturers.
In February, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump lacked authority to impose many of his global tariffs under existing statutes; he has pledged to reinstate some levies through other legal channels.
U.S. officials previewing the trip said discussions would include the possible extension of the rare earths deal, though they stopped short of confirming any announcement this week.
Senior officials also floated the potential creation of bilateral "boards" for trade and investment to manage commerce in non-sensitive goods. Tech executives including Apple CEO Tim Cook and Tesla CEO Elon Musk are among those slated to accompany Trump on the visit.
The agenda extends into emerging areas of both tension and potential cooperation. Officials said talks would address artificial intelligence and nuclear arms, with the two governments reportedly considering an AI safety dialogue that Beijing has long sought. The United States is also expected to push China to join an international effort to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a request Beijing has so far resisted.
The breadth of the agenda has revived discussion among analysts of a so-called "Group of Two" dynamic, an informal framework in which the world's two largest economies manage global affairs in coordination. The G2 concept was originally floated by economist C. Fred Bergsten in 2005 and has periodically resurfaced at moments of heightened U.S.-China engagement.
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