U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the press aboard Air Force One en route to the United States after an official visit with President Xi Jinping in China, May 15, 2026.
Evan Vucci | Reuters
Onboard Air Force One/Dubai, May 16 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed that Tehran needs to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but China has not indicated it agrees.
President Trump, who returned from Beijing on Friday after two days of talks with President Xi Jinping, said he was considering whether to lift U.S. sanctions on Chinese oil companies that buy Iranian oil. China is the largest buyer of Iranian oil.
Asked by reporters on Air Force One whether President Xi had committed to pressuring Iran to reopen the Strait, Trump said: “I’m not asking for any favors, because when you ask for favors, you have to do favors in return.”
Although Xi did not “comment” on his talks with Trump on Iran, China’s Foreign Ministry criticized the war as a conflict that “should never happen and there is no reason to continue.”
“We want the strait open.”
Iran effectively blocked the strait, which carries a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supplies, before the United States and Israel launched their attacks on February 28. The shipping disruption has caused the biggest oil supply crisis in history, pushing up oil prices.
Ebrahim Azizi, chairman of the Iranian parliament’s National Security Committee, said on Saturday that the Iranian government is preparing a mechanism to control traffic through the strait along a designated route that will be published soon.
Azizi said only commercial vessels and parties working with Iran would benefit, and fees would be collected for professional services provided under the mechanism.
Thousands of Iranians were killed in US and Israeli airstrikes. Israel and Lebanon agreed on Friday to a 45-day extension of a cease-fire to calm the conflict in Lebanon, where fighting between Israel and the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah has left thousands more dead.
The United States paused its attacks last month but began a port blockade. As of Saturday, 78 commercial ships had been rerouted to ensure compliance with the blockade, and four ships were grounded, the US military said.
The Iranian government, which has carried out attacks on Israel, U.S. military bases and Gulf states since the start of the war, has said it will not lift the blockade of the strait until the United States lifts its blockade. President Trump has threatened to resume attacks if Iran does not comply with the deal.
“We don’t want them to have nuclear weapons. We want them to open the straits,” President Trump said in Beijing alongside President Xi.
Iran has long denied any intention to build nuclear weapons, but has refused to halt nuclear research or abandon its hidden stockpile of enriched uranium.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Arakchi said his country had received a message from the United States indicating its intention to continue dialogue.
Pakistan acts as an intermediary between Washington and Tehran. Iranian news agency Noor News reported that Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni held “detailed” discussions with his visiting Pakistani counterpart about Iran-Pakistan relations and prospects for resuming peace talks, but did not elaborate.
Trump has lost his patience
President Trump said in an interview on Fox News’ “Hannity” on Thursday that he was losing patience with Iran and said Iran “should make a deal.”
On Friday, oil prices rose about 3% to around $109 a barrel on concerns about a lack of progress in resolving the conflict.
Talks on ending the war, a liability for President Trump ahead of November’s US Congressional elections, have been on hold since last week, when Iran and the US each rejected the other’s latest proposals.
Foreign Minister Araqchi said on Friday that Iran welcomes Chinese cooperation, adding that Iran is willing to give diplomacy a chance but does not trust the United States, which has launched airstrikes and cut short previous talks.
When the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran in late February, they said one of their goals was to weaken the authorities and allow Iranians to overthrow the government.
There has been little sign of organized opposition in Iran during the war, and human rights groups say the government has severely cracked down on dissent.
Iran’s judiciary announced on Saturday that 39 people have been executed since the start of the war on charges of cooperating with Israeli and US spy agencies or participating in “terrorism” or armed insurrection, the judiciary’s Mizan news agency reported.
The report said 36 “intermediate” dissidents had been sentenced to long prison terms.
