The President Goes to Beijing.
The War with Iran Goes With Him.
A ‘Long Talk’ About a War He Says He Doesn’t Need Help With.
Day 75 of the Iran war. Wednesday, May 13, 2026. Air Force One is on its way to Beijing. President Trump told reporters before takeoff that he and Xi Jinping would have a “long talk” about Iran — then added, twenty-four hours earlier, that “I don’t think we need any help with Iran.” Both statements are on the record.
The trip itself is a fact about the war. The state visit was originally scheduled for the first week of April. Trump postponed it then, saying it would not be right to leave the country in the middle of an active conflict. He has now decided that it is right — or at least necessary — to fly to the capital of Tehran’s largest oil customer, on Day 75 of a war whose central economic problem is a closed Strait of Hormuz that runs roughly 20% of global oil and LNG trade in normal conditions and almost none of it now.
The Lebanese Health Ministry’s running count, carried by Al Jazeera and corroborated by the British government’s May 2026 Lebanon bulletin, now stands at 2,882 killed and 8,768 injured since Hezbollah opened the Lebanese front on March 2 — 380 of those killed and 1,122 injured since the April 17 Lebanon-Israel ceasefire, including 108 first responders. CSIS assesses Iran retains roughly 70% of its pre-war missile stockpile and 75% of its mobile launchers. Tehran says the figure is 120%. The Strait is closed. Six Americans are still in Iranian custody. The president is on a plane to China.
- May 12–15Trump state visit to ChinaPer PRC Foreign Ministry: Beijing arrival evening of May 13; bilateral with Xi + Temple of Heaven tour May 14. First U.S. presidential state visit to China since 2017. Trip was postponed from April because of the war.
- 2,882 / 8,768Lebanon casualties since March 2Lebanese Health Ministry total since Hezbollah opened the Lebanese front: 2,882 killed and 8,768 injured. 380 killed and 1,122 injured since the April 17 Lebanon-Israel ceasefire alone — 108 of those first responders.
- ~70% / ~75%Iranian missile stocks / mobile launchersU.S. intelligence assessment per CSIS: Tehran retains roughly 70% of its pre-war ballistic-missile inventory and 75% of its mobile launchers after Operation Epic Fury. Iran disputes — FM Araghchi claims 120%.
- 640 strikes / 17 provincesdocumented Israeli strikes on IranHRANA-recorded total of Israeli/U.S. strikes inside Iran across the campaign — targeting Mehrabad International Airport (16 Quds Force aircraft destroyed), Tehran logistics nodes, and Isfahan facilities, among others.
- 438 / 2,012 / 19Iranian projectiles fired at UAE (April 1)UAE Ministry of Defence count as of April 1, 2026: 438 ballistic missiles, 2,012 drones, 19 cruise missiles fired at Emirati targets. UAE later struck Iran’s Lavan Island refinery in covert retaliation; Saudi Arabia ran a parallel late-March strike campaign.
China is the largest single buyer of Iranian crude oil. By the IEA’s own framing, China’s purchases are the financial mechanism that has kept the Iranian Treasury solvent through years of U.S. sanctions and is keeping it solvent now, after seventy-five days of an active U.S.-Israeli war. The corollary is that China is the single foreign capital with real economic leverage on Tehran. Whether Beijing chooses to use that leverage on Washington’s behalf is the question Trump is flying nine thousand miles to ask in person.
Originally scheduled: First week of April 2026. Trump postponed, telling reporters it “wouldn’t be right” to leave the U.S. in the middle of an active war.
Re-confirmed: Bloomberg reported on May 11 that the PRC had agreed to a new May 14–15 summit; PRC MFA put the formal “state visit” window at May 12–15.
What changed: Nothing on the battlefield. The Strait is still closed. The April 7 ceasefire is, in Trump’s own May 7 phrase, on “life support.” What changed is the political math: a U.S. president who postponed once over the war cannot postpone twice without conceding that the war is running his foreign-policy calendar.
Two messages, one trip: Trump’s pre-departure quote — “I don’t think we need any help with Iran” — is for the home audience. The fact of the trip itself, on Day 75, is the quieter message Beijing actually receives.
“We're going to have a long talk about it.”
President Donald J. Trump · to reporters before departure for Beijing · May 13, 2026 · per Al Jazeera
The headline pitch from Al Jazeera’s May 13 live blog cited the Lebanese Health Ministry. The Ministry’s running totals, tracked since the start of the regional war and corroborated against the British government’s own May 2026 Lebanon country bulletin, look like this:
Since Hezbollah opened the Lebanese front on March 2: 2,882 killed, 8,768 injured.
Since the April 17 Lebanon-Israel ceasefire alone: 380 killed, 1,122 injured. 108 of those killed were first responders.
This week: Israeli strikes on May 8 killed 32 Lebanese; May 9 killed 36; May 11 killed 5 more, including two paramedics. Lebanese Health Minister Nasser Al-Din said in a press conference that Israel has been targeting medical and emergency personnel and that the documentation will continue.
Status of the Lebanese front: Nominally a ceasefire. In practice, casualties continue daily. The Lebanon casualties are not part of the Iranian casualty count, which is tracked separately by the Iranian Ministry of Health and is itself contested.
Inside Iran, HRANA has documented 640 strikes across 17 provinces since the war began, with explicit kinetic targets including Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran (where the IDF said it destroyed 16 Quds Force aircraft), logistics garrisons in the capital, and facilities in Isfahan. CENTCOM and IDF assessments of residual Iranian capability differ sharply from Tehran’s own. CSIS’s “Last Rounds?” analysis puts U.S. intelligence at roughly 70% of pre-war ballistic missiles remaining in Iranian hands, and 75% of mobile launchers; Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has rejected those numbers in public, claiming the inventory stands at 120% of pre-war capacity. The GlobalSecurity.org Day 73 OPREP recorded no major missile or drone exchange between U.S./coalition forces and Iran on May 11, with the air ceasefire nominally holding while naval engagements in Hormuz continue.
Trump’s public framing is that the Beijing summit is, first and foremost, a trade meeting. The PRC’s public framing is a state visit with a full ceremonial program. Both governments have separately confirmed Iran is on the docket. The actual portfolio splits roughly four ways:
Trade: Trump’s declared headline. Likely deliverables under discussion include a Chinese commitment to purchase U.S. agricultural products and Boeing aircraft, plus rare-earth export terms. Foreign Policy assessment: China is buying time to consolidate its industrial position; the U.S. is hunting for symbolic wins, not structural reform of the Chinese economic model.
Iran & the Strait of Hormuz: Per CNBC, the U.S. has been pressing Beijing for weeks to lean on Iran to reopen the Strait to commercial shipping. China publicly called for “an immediate end to the hostilities” and a “prompt resumption of shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz” in the May 6 Wang Yi-Araghchi readout — though the Hormuz language was conspicuously absent from Iran’s own version of the statement on Telegram.
Taiwan: Xi is expected to press Trump to formally oppose Taiwan independence, support “peaceful reunification,” or restate the “one China principle.” Trump has put Taiwan arms sales and the Hong Kong jailing of Jimmy Lai on his agenda in return.
AI, rare earths, technology export controls: The technical files. Less photo-genic, more consequential to the actual U.S.-China economic relationship.
The U.S. State Department has formally designated Iran a “state sponsor of wrongful detention.” The Washington Post, citing administration officials, has reported that at least six Americans are believed to be in Iranian custody. Two have been publicly identified: Kamran Hekmati (61), detained in May 2025, and Reza Valizadeh (49), detained in September 2024. Both were arrested on what U.S. officials describe as fabricated charges.
Trump’s stated four objectives for ending the war: end Iranian uranium enrichment; remove the 60%-enriched stockpile; dismantle Fordow, Natanz, Isfahan; reopen the Strait. The release of detained Americans is not on the list.
Roger Carstens, the former U.S. Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs (Biden administration), has publicly called for hostage release to be added as a fifth objective.
The administration position, per the Washington Post: the request will be made — through Pakistani or Qatari mediators — but it may be deferred if it complicates the nuclear track.
The Beijing angle: China’s leverage on Tehran cuts both ways. Beijing has the relationship to accelerate a hostage release as a confidence-building measure if it chooses to spend that capital. Whether Trump asks Xi for it — and what he offers in return — is one of the unanswered questions of the trip.
The day Trump’s plane took off, three other things happened that Beijing already knows about and Washington is still digesting. Kuwait announced it had arrested four alleged IRGC members who had attempted to enter the country via Bubiyan Island and were planning “hostile” activities. Qatar’s Foreign Ministry publicly accused Tehran of “weaponising” the Strait and using it to “blackmail” Gulf states. Australia, joining a France-UK-led mission, announced it would contribute a surveillance aircraft to defend the UAE against Iranian drone strikes. The picture from the Gulf capitals is not the picture Tehran is selling: it is a picture of a steadily widening coalition that is already past the “will they intervene” phase.
UAE → Lavan Island refinery (early April 2026): Disclosed by the Wall Street Journal on May 12; Washington “quietly welcomed” the strike. The UAE Ministry of Defence has logged 438 Iranian ballistic missiles, 2,012 drones, and 19 cruise missiles fired at UAE targets as of April 1.
Saudi Arabia → multiple Iranian targets (late March 2026): Disclosed by Reuters on May 12. F-15SAs and Eurofighter Typhoons; first known direct Saudi military action on Iranian soil. Iranian projectile attacks on Saudi Arabia collapsed from 105+ in the week of March 25–31 to ~25 between April 1–6— a 76% drop after the Saudi strikes.
Israel inside Iran: 640 documented strikes across 17 provinces per HRANA; Mehrabad International Airport, Tehran logistics nodes, Isfahan facilities. The IDF claims 16 Quds Force aircraft destroyed at Mehrabad alone.
U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports: In effect since April 13 (Day 45). Two Iranian tankers (M/T Sea Star III, M/T Sevda) disabled May 8 attempting to breach.
Trump’s framing all week has been that the ceasefire is on “life support” and that the war will end “peacefully or otherwise.” Iran’s framing all week has been Pezeshkian’s phrase: “We will never bow our heads.” The Beijing summit does not, on either side’s public schedule, contain a deliverable that resolves the central impasse — the U.S. demand for zero Iranian enrichment versus Iran’s “definite red line” on its right to enrich. What the summit can produce is something narrower: Chinese pressure on Iran to reopen the Strait, perhaps in exchange for U.S. forbearance on Taiwan arms-package timing. That is the deal-shape that fits inside a two-day state visit. Whether either leader is willing to sign it is the question the next forty-eight hours answer.
The downside case is the one Trump’s own approval numbers reflect. CNBC reports the war and the resulting energy-price spike have dragged his approval down across the board. A Beijing summit that produces a photograph and not a Strait reopening leaves him flying back to a country whose inflation problem still has a Hormuz-shaped hole in it. Xi knows that. So does Tehran.
“I don't think we need any help with Iran.”
President Donald J. Trump · to reporters at the White House · May 12, 2026 · per NPR
On Day 75 of an Iran war that has killed 2,882 in Lebanon alone and closed 20% of the world’s oil shipping lane, the President flew to Beijing to ask the regime that buys most of Iran’s oil for help he has publicly said he doesn’t need. Six Americans remain in Iranian custody. Iran says its missile inventory is at 120% of pre-war. The U.S. says it is at 70%. Both numbers fit on the same page of the briefing book Trump is carrying into the Great Hall of the People. Xi will read it before he answers.
President Trump · Truth Social · May 11, 2026 · 5:55 PM EDT — pre-departure post: ‘Great things will happen for both Countries.’
President Trump · Truth Social · May 12, 2026 · 11:09 PM EDT — aboard Air Force One: Jensen Huang, Musk, Tim Cook, Larry Fink, Stephen Schwarzman, Boeing’s Kelly Ortberg, Citi’s Jane Fraser, GE Aerospace’s Larry Culp, Goldman’s David Solomon, Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon — the CEO delegation.
Today I designated Iran as a State Sponsor of Wrongful Detention. For decades the Iranian regime has cruelly detained innocent Americans and citizens of other nations to use as political leverage. Iran must end this abhorrent practice and immediately free all unjustly detained.
U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyers are currently operating in the Arabian Gulf after transiting the Strait of Hormuz in support of Project Freedom. American forces are actively assisting efforts to restore transit for commercial shipping. As a first step, 2 U.S.-flagged merchant vessels have safely transited.
There are many false claims in this letter but let me address one specifically: that “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation.” This is the same false claim that Democrats and some in the liberal media have been repeating over and over. As President Trump has clearly and consistently stated, the United States will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon.