HONG KONG: United States President Donald Trump said he is still planning to travel to China as scheduled this month despite the stalemate in the negotiations with Iran.
When asked about the trip to Beijing, Trump told reporters on Friday (May 1): “It is going to be amazing. The visit with China and Chairman Xi [Jinping] – that’s going to be great.
“We have the trip with China coming up. And I think it will be an amazing event.”
Trump had initially planned to visit Beijing in late March, but put the trip back to May 14 and 15 after starting the war against Iran.
Chinese analysts said the trip would be crucial for the two countries to manage risks in the face of rising uncertainty worldwide.
Iran has passed a new proposal for a second round of peace talks with the US to Pakistani mediators, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency, which did not give details of the plan.
However, Trump said he was “not satisfied” with the offer, without specifying its shortcomings.
“We’ll see what happens. Iran wants to make a deal because they have no military left, essentially,” he said.
Meanwhile, Trump also expanded sanctions on Cuba to target foreign companies and financial institutions deemed to support the government in Havana, and risked further straining relations with Europe by announcing that he would withdraw 5,000 US troops from Germany.
The latter decision followed Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s comments that the US was being “humiliated” by the Iranian leadership and that Washington lacked a strategy.
WHAT ANALYSTS SAY
Shen Dingli, a Shanghai-based professor of international affairs, said Trump’s visit to Beijing was mainly about risk management.
“Washington wants to avoid complete decoupling from strategic supply chains – such as rare earths – for now, and also wants China not to arm Iran. For China, the focus is on the Taiwan issue,” Shen said.
Ma Bo, an associate professor at the school of international studies at Nanjing University, said that the primary consideration for Trump was to stabilise relations with China.
“With no clear off-ramp from the Russia-Ukraine conflict or the war in Iran, Washington cannot afford to open new fronts of instability in the Taiwan Strait or South China Sea,” Ma said.
Trade and technology frictions between the two powers had settled into a “normalised status”, with US supply chain adjustments not targeting China alone, Ma added.
“What is more sensitive are security issues in China’s periphery: the Taiwan Strait, South China Sea, and to some extent the issue of North Korea,” he said.
“These areas carry far greater spillover risks and may become the focus of bilateral communication.”