US President Donald Trump has announced that his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing will take place on 14 and 15 May, after being postponed due to the Iran war. The trip, which was originally scheduled for next week, will be Trump's first visit to China in eight years.
In a post on Truth Social on Wednesday, Trump said he would also host Xi for a reciprocal visit in Washington later this year. He wrote: 'Our Representatives are finalizing preparations for these Historic Visits. I look very much forward to spending time with President Xi in what will be, I am sure, a Monumental Event.'
The Chinese embassy said it had no information to offer on the visit. Beijing usually only gives details of Xi's schedule a few days in advance.
The long-scheduled trip has been repeatedly overtaken by events, including a Supreme Court ruling in February that curtailed Trump's power to impose tariffs, and the launch of a joint US-Israel military operation against Iran on 28 February, which introduced tension with Beijing, Tehran's main oil buyer.
Trump's last trip to China was in 2017. The May meeting will be the first in-person talks between the two leaders since an October meeting in South Korea where they agreed on a trade truce. The two-day visit is expected to combine lavish pomp with diplomacy, covering trade in agriculture and airplane parts, as well as tensions over Taiwan.
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said Trump and Xi spoke about rescheduling and that Xi understood the reasons. She added that the war with Iran was estimated to last four to six weeks, but it remains unclear whether it will be settled by the time of the summit.
