Trump’s tirades leave China dazed and confused
His chaotic foreign policy shifts might force Beijing to revise its heavy export-based model
President Donald Trump’s chaotic foreign policy has left China dazed and confused. The Iran War and the crisis in the Middle East have triggered salvos of missile strikes. Raw American power has shattered Beijing’s economic goals, leaving them mangled like downed drones.
For Chinese leader Xi Jinping and his inner circle, this has been a disaster. At least 45% of oil imports and 30% of China’s liquefied natural gas traverse through the Straits of Hormuz. The maritime chokepoint has effectively been closed to shipping for the past 10 days.
Trade ties worth US$250 billion last year with Gulf states Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are at risk. The stakes are even higher globally without stability. In 2025, China’s export machine generated a record surplus of $1.2 trillion.
But that could quickly evaporate if economies across the world sink into recession amid spiraling energy costs. In the meantime, China’s trade surplus was a whopping $213.6 billion for the first two months of 2026.
“The fighting in Iran, a sharp rise in oil and gas prices, and the shipping freeze in the Straits of Hormuz have already put significant elements [of Beijing’s] largely sanitized economic thinking at risk,” George Magnus, of Oxford University’s China Center, pointed out.
“Not least [of these would be Chinese exports], which have been a key growth driver,” he wrote in a commentary for The Wire China this week.
China is a fair-weather friend, long on words, short on risk.
Craig Singleton, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Tête-à-tête in Beijing:
- Rising oil and gas prices have revealed a rapidly unstable world already battered by trade and tariff tensions since Trump walked back into the White House more than a year ago.
- He is due to hold talks with Xi later this month during a state visit. Earlier this week reports surfaced that security has already been tightened for his trip.
Delve deeper: Still, “[China is] proving to be a feckless friend for its authoritarian allies,” former US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns posted on X, formerly Twitter, referring to the military actions by the United States against Iran and Venezuela.
Between the lines: “China is a fair-weather friend, long on words, short on risk. Beijing will speak up at the United Nations but steer clear of providing any significant support to Tehran,” Craig Singleton, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the CNN network.
Big picture: William Yang, of the think tank International Crisis Group, offered a different take. “[China] will not want to jeopardize the positive momentum that it has built with the Trump administration over the last year,” he said.
China Factor comment: Whatever the outcome in the standoff between Washington and Tehran, Beijing’s export-heavy economic model will eventually come under intensive pressure. In a Trump world of grievances, recklessness has replaced reliability.