The Xi-Trump Summit Runs on Oil That Isn’t Moving

Both countries are dependent on what's trickling right now

By Imran Khalid

Foreign Policy in Focus

BC Guest Commentator

"Both countries are dependent on what's trickling right now through twocritical chokepoints."

Somewhere in the briefing papers prepared for this week’s meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping sits a request that quietly retires a decade of American strategy. Washington wants Beijing to lean on Tehran over the Strait of Hormuz. China buys more Iranian crude than any other country, which is exactly why its opinion is thought to carry weight in Tehran. So, the United States, after 10 years of arguing that it must pull itself free of the Chinese economy, is asking the Chinese economy to help it reopen a waterway that the U.S. Navy has not been able to reopen in nearly seven months of trying...

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