Does Trump hope Xi Jinping will intervene to help end the Iran conflict? If so, it may be a masterstroke. China has many reasons for doing so and plenty of leverage to do it.

There is a basic sales premise most people understand: you cannot close a deal with someone who does not have the authority to make the deal.

That may be the central problem with Iran.

President Trump can pressure Iran. He can bomb Iran. He can sanction Iran. He can blockade Iran. He can offer terms to Iran. But who, exactly, is “Iran” in this situation?

Is it the official government? The clerics? The Revolutionary Guards? The negotiators sent into the room? The military men who may not obey them? The religious leadership that may not trust the military? The hardliners who have built careers on hating America?

At some point, this becomes less like diplomacy and more like trying to sell a house when nobody knows who owns it.

That is why the China angle is so interesting.

Trump’s trip to Beijing is being discussed mainly through the obvious frames: trade, Taiwan, AI, fentanyl, CEOs, state banquet optics. Those are real issues. Xi Jinping also made sure to put Taiwan front and center, warning that mishandling the issue could put the U.S.-China relationship in danger. The White House readout, notably, emphasized other topics and did not center Taiwan the way China did.

Donald Trump may have just asked to speak to the manager of Iran.

Trump and Xi agreed that the Strait of Hormuz must remain open and that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. Xi also reportedly expressed opposition to militarizing the strait or charging a toll for passage. Hormuz is not just a regional problem. It is an artery of the global economy.

And China has every reason to care.

China is not helping Trump because it has suddenly become sentimental about American leadership. China is helping because China needs energy. It needs shipping lanes. It needs stability. It needs the Gulf not to become one giant insurance premium.

Most of all, China needs Iran to stop making Chinese life harder.

Iran may be difficult for Trump to pressure directly, but Iran is not immune to pressure. It is just more likely to listen to the country that still buys its oil.

China is Iran’s biggest economic lifeline. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission says Chinese purchases account for roughly 90 percent of Iran’s exported oil, providing tens of billions of dollars that help support Iran’s government budget and military activities. China bought more than 80 percent of Iran’s shipped oil in 2025, averaging about 1.38 million barrels per day.

China does not have formal authority inside Iran. But China has something almost as important: leverage over Iran’s financial bloodstream.

If China slows purchases, demands deeper discounts, delays payments, squeezes middlemen, pressures banks, or stops providing diplomatic cover, Tehran feels it. Maybe not in a dramatic Hollywood way the next morning. But a regime already under strain does not have unlimited room to absorb the loss of its biggest customer.

That is why being abandoned by China would be catastrophic for Iran’s regime economy.

Iran can survive American hostility. It has been doing that for decades. It can survive isolation. It can survive bad press. It can survive condemnation from Europe. It can survive the contempt of Gulf states. It can even survive sanctions longer than people expect, because regimes can squeeze their own people very hard before they give up power.

But can Iran easily survive losing China?

That is a different question.

And Trump seems to understand the angle. He may not be able to get a clean yes from Tehran because Tehran may not have one person who can say yes and enforce it. But Xi Jinping can walk into the room with a very different message: this war is now interfering with Chinese interests.

That is not a moral argument. It may be more effective because of that.

China does not need to love America. China does not need to abandon every relationship with Iran. China does not even need to publicly humiliate Tehran. It only needs to tell Iran, quietly, that this cannot continue indefinitely.

We may already be seeing a hint of that. Iran has reportedly begun allowing certain Chinese vessels to pass through the Strait of Hormuz after Chinese diplomatic requests. That suggests Iran is treating China differently from everyone else. It also suggests Beijing has channels Washington does not have.

That is the opening.

Trump’s leverage may not be over Iran directly. It may be over the power with leverage over Iran.

China’s relationship with the United States is far bigger than its relationship with Iran. Beijing wants access to markets, technology, trade stability, and a functioning global economy. It wants cheap Iranian oil, yes. But it probably does not want to risk a broader confrontation with the United States just so a fractured Iranian regime can keep playing revolutionary games in the Strait of Hormuz.

That is what makes this potentially smart.

Trump may be using China’s self-interest to box Iran in. He does not have to persuade Xi that Iran is bad. He only has to persuade Xi that Iran is becoming expensive.

And if China decides Iran is more liability than asset, Tehran has a serious problem.

Trump may not know who in Iran can end the war. But Xi may.

That could be the beginning of a deal.

(Contributing writer, Brooke Bell)