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President Donald Trump is set to travel to Beijing this Thursday for a two-day summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, with the ongoing Iran war casting a long shadow over the talks.

Some shit you should know before you dig in: If you’re unaware, this will be Trump’s first in-person meeting with Xi since the two leaders met in Busan, South Korea, last October, where they agreed to a year-long trade truce. The summit was originally set for late March but got pushed back as the Iran war escalated. Top US officials have already indicated that the ongoing conflict with Iran will be a major topic of the meetings with Xi. Notably, China is Iran’s largest oil customer and basically told its companies to ignore recent sanctions imposed on Chinese refineries that buy Iranian oil (the first time the law has been used). In response to this, the Trump administration has doubled down and slapped more sanctions on Chinese firms that it claims are assisting Iran in the ongoing conflict. It should also be noted that the US has pulled a significant amount of military hardware out of the Indo-Pacific and redirected it toward the Middle East as the conflict with Iran has dragged on longer than anticipated. These movements include both naval assets and munitions (primarily air defense systems).

What’s going on now: Senate Democrats and a wide range of foreign policy analysts are publicly warning that Trump is heading into the summit in a significantly weakened position. Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Fox News Sunday that the war has cratered Trump’s leverage going in. “President Trump is going into this meeting terribly weakened. He has involved ourselves in a conflict with Iran. There’s a stalemate now. The Iranians are holding 20 percent of the world’s oil at risk.”

Reed also pointed to the wider damage the war has done, noting that pulling US forces and hardware out of the Pacific to deal with Iran has chipped away at how prepared the military is to handle China, all while China has been stepping up its military footprint around Taiwan. “We’re seeing at home significant gas prices, significant increases in grocery prices and in all sorts of prices for the American home. And the American people are significantly concerned about this conflict with Iran. So that’s not a strong position to be in when you’re talking to an economic and a geopolitical rival.”

Despite this, some analysts argue Trump may be heading into the summit stronger than critics suggest. Supporters of this view point to Trump approving record-busting arms sales to Taiwan in late 2025, expanded US military positioning across Japan and Australia, and the case that the Iran war actually hurts China by squeezing Xi’s major Middle Eastern partner and disrupting the Iranian oil flows China depends on.

This all comes as Trump is reportedly hoping to walk away from the summit with several headline wins. The administration plans to invite CEOs from companies including Apple, Exxon, Nvidia, and Boeing on the trip, according to Semafor, with a major Boeing deal reportedly in the offing. Trump is also looking for breakthroughs on artificial intelligence, critical minerals, and fentanyl, along with a possible extension of the year-long trade truce he and Xi agreed to in October.

Trump has talked up his “very good relationship” with Xi for months and recently predicted Xi would give him a “big, fat hug” over Iran, saying the Chinese leader has been “very respectful” on the issue.