Trump Says Xi Offered Help To Make a Deal With Iran And ‘Would Like To See The Hormuz Strait Open’
President Donald Trump said on Thursday that Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping offered him help to strike a deal with Iran and would “like to see the Hormuz Strait open” as the stalemate between the two countries continues.
“President Xi would like to see a deal made. He would, he would like to see a deal made. And he did offer. He said, ‘If I can be of any help at all, I would like to be of help,'” Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity in a taped interview.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also said that Beijing will work “behind the scenes” to get the waterway reopened. “It’s very much in their interest to get the strait reopened,” he told CNBC’s Joe Kernen. “I think they will be working behind the scenes to the extent anyone has any say over the Iranian leadership.”
10% of China’s imports came from Iran in 2024, the outlet added based on the U.S. Energy Information Administration. “China has a much bigger interest in reopening the strait than the U.S. does,” Bessent said.
Moreover, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier on Thursday that the countries agreed on the notion that the waterway should not be militarized.
Speaking to NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas, Rubio said “the Chinese side said they are not in favor of militarizing the Straits of Hormuz, and they’re not in favor of a tolling system, and that’s our position.”
Rubio went on to address the impact of soaring oil prices in the global economy, saying the U.S. is not “immune” to it because “we do buy from the global market,” but “other countries around the world are paying a much higher price.” “They’ve got to get involved in this as well,” he added, in reference to reopening the Strait of Hormuz. However, he said, the U.S. is “not asking for China’s help” on the matter.
Production has plummeted in the region since. Saudi Arabia informed OPEC that its production of oil dropped more than 40% to its lowest level since 1990, according to a new report.
Bloomberg detailed that the cartel’s monthly report showed that Saudi production fell by more than 650,000 barrels per day, clocking in at 6.316 million barrels per day. It is the lowest figure since the Gulf War in 1990 after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.
The country went on to say that it has partially mitigated the impact of the Strait of Hormuz’s closure by rerouting some exports through its east-west pipeline network.
The organization has said that, overall, oil production fell more than 30% since the beginning of the Iran war. It is unclear how Iran’s production has been affected by the hostilities.
