National Security Notebook | Number 7, May 9, 2026

Iran looms over the Trump-Xi summit.

President Trump is headed to China this coming week for that long-awaited summit with Xi Jinping. The agenda is a packed one, because he and the Chinese president have a great deal of bilateral issues to talk about. Iran, though, is shaping up to be a significant subject as well, and it’s one that could influence all the others. Here’s what I mean.

When the current conflict started back in late February, the White House was expecting it to be over by the time Trump made his way to Beijing. It was also pretty confident that the war would end in a way that gave the U.S. added leverage over the PRC.

Things haven’t turned out quite so. More than two months on, the U.S. conflict with Iran is still simmering, despite the current ceasefire, and Washington is still trying to pressure Tehran into some sort of deal.

That’s where China comes in. The PRC imports something like 90 percent of Iran’s total oil exports, making it a true economic lifeline for Tehran – and giving it considerable leverage over the regime, no matter what Beijing might say to the contrary.

The Administration understands this, and officials like Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have repeatedly tried to get China to use its leverage to get Iran’s remaining regime to the negotiating table. Beijing, though, hasn’t played ball, for pragmatic reasons.

Namely, the PRC recognizes that the war has dented the Administration’s global image, and also created an opening with nervous regional states that are now trying to figure out a new modus vivendi with Iran. Moreover, China clearly senses that a U.S. bogged down in the Middle East is less able and likely to cause trouble for it in the Indo-Pacific.

So you might expect that enlisting China would be a dead issue. I suspect, though, that Trump will actually get a fairly constructive response from Xi if he asks him for help with the Iran “file.” The catch? The price of any such assistance is sure to be sky-high.

There are lots of things the PRC wants from the U.S., among them trade concessions and tariff relief, an easing of U.S. tech and export controls, and stronger assurances on Taiwan (since Xi has made “reunification” a cardinal priority). Any or all of these could end up being on the bill as the cost of a more constructive Chinese approach on Iran. The question, I suspect, will end up being whether Trump is prepared to pay it.