Gulf crisis weakens Trump’s hand in his coming talks with Xi

As President Trump prepares to fly to Beijing for his summit with Xi Jinping, the unresolved war in the Persian Gulf is threatening to hand China its strongest non‑tariff bargaining chip before the first handshake.

The closer the summit draws, the more urgently Washington is racing to freeze the Iran crisis, because nothing weakens America’s hand at the table with Xi like arriving with the Strait of Hormuz still contested and global energy markets still rattled.

This is the paradox now shaping U.S. strategy: The harder Washington pushes for a rapid Iran resolution before May 14, the more it reveals urgency that expands Chinese leverage. 

That urgency flows directly from the incentives now governing all three capitals. Washington needs a signable memorandum of understanding, even a thin one, to avoid walking into Beijing with a live regional conflict dominating the agenda. Tehran, reading the clock correctly, has every incentive to slow‑walk negotiations until the last possible moment. Beijing benefits most by remaining the indispensable variable — the actor whose quiet pressure could help close a deal, but only at a price.

The triangle is more misaligned than it first appears. The U.S. is pushing for a 20‑year enrichment freeze; Iran is offering five. That gap is not a rounding error — it reflects a fundamental disagreement over whether Iran retains any sovereign nuclear program at the end of this........

© The Hill