A reported U.S. intelligence assessment is putting a sharper frame around President Donald Trump’s Beijing visit: the Iran war is not just a Middle East crisis anymore. It is now a U.S.-China leverage problem.
Anadolu Agency reported, citing The Washington Post and two U.S. officials, that an analysis prepared this week for Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine found China has gained a major edge over the United States amid the Iran war.
The report landed as Trump entered meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. Reuters reported that the summit agenda includes the fragile U.S.-China trade truce, Taiwan arms sales and the Iran war, with Trump seeking economic wins after the conflict damaged his domestic standing.
Why the Iran war is now a China problem
Reuters said Trump is expected to urge Xi to help convince Tehran to make a deal with Washington. But the same report noted that analysts doubt Beijing will push Iran too hard, because Tehran remains useful to China as a strategic counterweight to U.S. power.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News aboard Air Force One that China also has a practical reason to want the crisis resolved: many Chinese ships are stuck in the Persian Gulf, and a wider slowdown would hurt Chinese exporters, Reuters reported.
That is the core tension. Washington wants Beijing’s help ending the war. Beijing may prefer to use the moment to extract concessions while the U.S. is under pressure from energy costs, shipping disruption and political blowback at home.
A high-stakes Beijing visit
PBS NewsHour reported that Trump arrived in China for high-stakes talks covering trade, Taiwan and the Iran war. Reuters described the visit as the first by a U.S. president to China since 2017 and said Trump is traveling with major CEOs, including Elon Musk and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
The Reuters report also said the power dynamic has shifted since Trump’s earlier dealings with Xi. Trump enters the summit with inflation and approval-rating damage tied to the Iran war, while Xi does not face comparable political pressure.
For the Iran crisis, that means the battlefield is expanding beyond missiles, tankers and the Strait of Hormuz. The newest angle is diplomatic leverage: whether China helps Washington contain the war, or uses the crisis to strengthen its own position against a weakened U.S. president.
For now, the public evidence points to a hard bargain ahead. The U.S. wants Chinese pressure on Tehran. China has ships, trade and regional influence at stake. Iran, meanwhile, remains valuable to Beijing precisely because it complicates U.S. power in the Gulf.