⚡️🇺🇸🇨🇳🇮🇷 — US Ambassador to China David Perdue told CNBC that President Donald Trump reiterated during his White House meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping that any Chinese assistance to Iran—whether direct or indirect, including intelligence, parts, or military equipment—was “totally unacceptable,” calling the issue an “ongoing drumbeat” raised for weeks.

Despite strict warnings over Teheran, official summit readouts analyzed by Reuters note that both leaders established a baseline diplomatic consensus on broader Middle Eastern security, agreeing that Iran must never acquire nuclear weapons and that the Strait of Hormuz must remain open to international navigation.

➡️ On trade, the two sides agreed to extend their truce by two months, keeping tariffs from returning to the triple-digit levels seen in 2025. On AI, Xi stressed the need to keep artificial intelligence under human control and develop it responsibly for the benefit of society, while Trump took a more optimistic position and called for no change to what he described as “superintelligence.”

➡️ On Taiwan, Xi reportedly pressed Trump to oppose Taiwan independence, which Reuters described as a major sticking point in previous discussions between the two leaders. Reports also confirmed that $14 billion in arms sales to Taiwan approved by Congress remain under White House review, leaving Trump’s position unresolved.

While Trump continues to leverage this military package as a negotiating chip in broader macroeconomic talks with Beijing, defense analysts tracking the summit at Nikkei Asia emphasize that the administration's leverage is fundamentally constrained by the structural and legal mandates of the Taiwan Relations Act, which legally binds the United States to supply Taiwan with necessary defensive assets.

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