ExclusiveWhat are the real reasons behind the change of date for Trump’s China visit?
After confirmation that the high-stakes Xi-Trump summit will be delayed, analysts find a complex story beneath the official surface.
But beneath the surface, a more complex story emerges: months of growing frustrations, mismatched expectations, unanswered proposals and a distracted Trump administration, all compounded by geopolitical crosswinds.
The result is a latticework of concerns that were straining the lead-up to the summit long before missiles escalated Middle East tensions, leaving Beijing increasingly wary of the meeting and bracing for even lower expectations.
Trump did not give details on Tuesday of the diplomatic exchange behind the rescheduling or exactly when the summit might come together, other than “in five or six weeks”.
This reflected in part huge questions over the war’s duration, its objectives and the extent of the collateral damage. Closure of the strait, a critical oil chokepoint, has already disrupted global energy markets and complicated Trump’s foreign policy agenda.