Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday that the meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping could be delayed for logistical reasons. Bessent spoke during an appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
Trump suggested on Sunday that the summit could be delayed as the United States pressures China to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Bessent walked back those comments on Monday, arguing that the summit would be delayed if Trump decides to stay in Washington to coordinate the war effort in Iran.
“If the meetings are delayed, they will not be delayed because the president demanded that China monitor the Strait of Hormuz,” Bessent said in an interview with CNBC’s Brian Sullivan in Paris. “If the meeting, for any reason, is rescheduled, it will be rescheduled due to logistical issues.”
“It would be a decision that the president made as commander in chief to stay in the White House or stay in the United States while this war is going on,” he said.
The comments also indicate that the White House anticipates that the war, which Trump initially said would last days, will be a constant concern a month after it began.
The Trump-Xi meeting is scheduled to take place in China as the US president carries out an attack on Iran that has largely closed the Strait of Hormuz and sent global oil prices soaring. The strait carries approximately 20% of the world’s oil and has remained largely impassable during the war.
The visit to China, scheduled for March 31 to April 2, would be the first by a U.S. president since Trump visited the country in 2017. The president met Xi in South Korea five months ago, where the two sides agreed to a temporary truce in a trade war in which tariffs between the world’s two largest economies briefly soared into triple digits.
Trump said on Air Force One on Sunday that other countries should help the United States unblock the Strait of Hormuz for shipping. In those comments he singled out China.
“Why do we keep the Strait of Hormuz when it is actually there for China and many other countries? Why don’t they?” said.
The United States and China have increased pressure ahead of the summit. The Trump administration announced last week that it was opening new trade investigations against China and more than a dozen other countries after the Supreme Court declared its initial tariff tool illegal, removing swaths of the president’s taxes.
The investigation is being conducted under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the United States to impose tariffs on countries found to engage in unfair trade practices.
China said it would respond to the US investigations, which it called “extremely one-sided, arbitrary and discriminatory.”
The United States and China also remain entangled over artificial intelligence, with Washington seeking to limit Beijing’s access to chips and other advanced American products. China has frequently been the recipient of Trump’s tariffs during his two terms in the White House.
Bessent was in Paris meeting his Chinese counterparts. The Treasury chief said those meetings went well and urged markets not to react negatively should the Trump-Xi summit be postponed.
“We spent two very good days here,” he said. “We will issue a statement in the coming days and reaffirm the stability in the relationship between the world’s first and second largest economies.”
