US & Canada

The lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University student targeted for deportation by the United States government over his pro-Palestine advocacy, have called on an immigration appeals court to reopen and terminate his case.

The latest legal appeal points to new evidence, some of which was documented in media reports, that Khalil’s lawyers said it “suggests that the Trump Administration secretly engineered the outcome of his immigration case to make an example of him”.

It comes just over a month after the Board of Immigration Appeals issued a final order of removal for Khalil, who was first detained by immigration enforcement agents in March 2025, one of several students targeted for their participation in pro-Palestine campus protests that swept the US the previous year.

Khalil, a US permanent resident who is married to a US citizen, has long maintained that he has been unjustly targeted for his political views.

His legal team said on Friday that “apparent procedural abnormalities” support that view.

“It’s clear that the revelations of DOJ misconduct corroborate what we have known since Mahmoud was arrested–that the administration has reverse-engineered its desired outcome by weaponising a farcical proceeding littered with abnormalities,” Johnny Sinodis, a lawyer representing Khalil, said in a statement.

The new evidence includes a report by The New York Times that found that Khalil’s case had been flagged as high priority before it had arrived at the Board of Immigration Appeals, in what his lawyers say indicated the case was being “fast-tracked”.

The report, citing case documents, also found that the court had been instructed to treat Khalil’s case as if he were still in detention custody, which typically results in an expedited processing timeline.

Khalil was released from immigration detention in June 2025 following a federal judge’s order. An appeals court later ruled the judge did not have jurisdiction over the matter. He is also appealing that decision, during which time authorities are barred from re-detaining or deporting him.

The New York Times report also found that three judges at the Board of Immigration Appeals recused themselves from the case. While the reasons for the recusals were not made public, experts familiar with the board’s procedures have said the rate of recusals was extremely rare.

The Board of Immigration Appeals is meant to be independent. Like other immigration courts, it falls under the Department of Justice in the executive branch, which critics say makes it more vulnerable to interference.

Other federal courts fall under the independence of the judicial branch.

The Trump administration has framed Khalil’s deportation as part of a crackdown on anti-Semitism. They have presented no evidence to back the claims against him, and Khalil has never been charged with a crime.

This week, The Intercept news site reported that shortly after he was detained by immigration agents, the FBI had closed an investigation into a tip that Khalil had called for “violence on behalf of Hamas”, saying it did not warrant further investigation.

In targeting Khalil, US Secretary of State Marco had invoked a rarely used provision of the Immigration and National Act that allows the deportation of individuals deemed to be a national security threat based on “past, current or expected beliefs, statements, or associations that are otherwise lawful”.

The manoeuvre raised questions over freedom of speech and whether those protections extended to permanent residents like Khalil. The government later added the claim that Khalil had intentionally failed to disclose his past work for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) on his immigration application.

Administration officials have repeatedly stood by the claims and maintained that Khalil received proper due process.

In a statement on Friday, Khalil said the administration “wants to arrest, detain, and deport me to intimidate everyone speaking out for Palestine across this country, and they are willing to violate longstanding US rules and procedures to do it”.

He added, “No lies, corruption, or ideological persecution will stop me from advocating for Palestine and for everyone’s right to free speech.”

US President Donald Trump concluded a two-day summit in Beijing with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The high-profile visit, in which Trump aimed to reset relations with Beijing, saw discussions on trade, Taiwan, and the war on Iran.

US President Donald Trump said he discussed US arms sales to Taiwan with Chinese leader Xi Jinping during talks in Beijing. Trump also said he is considering lifting sanctions on Chinese companies that buy Iranian oil.

Early signs point to the United States and China moving towards a relationship focused on pragmatic areas of common interest following US President Donald Trump’s trip to China, according to analysts, setting aside the turmoil that marked 2025.

Trump was in Beijing for three days this week to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, accompanied by a delegation of American CEOs, including the heads of Apple, Nvidia, BlackRock and Goldman Sachs.

The meeting between the two leaders came just over six months after they agreed to pause the US-China trade war for a year on the sidelines of a multilateral summit in South Korea. While a frequent critic of China’s economic policies at home, Trump appeared to get along with Xi in person throughout his trip and lavished praise on the Chinese leader.

“It’s an honour to be with you, it’s an honour to be your friend, and the relationship between China and the USA is going to be better than ever before,” Trump told Xi on Thursday.

The White House readout of the Trump-Xi meeting on Thursday stressed areas of common ground, stating that the leaders had “discussed ways to enhance economic cooperation between our two countries” by “expanding market access for American businesses into China and increasing Chinese investment into our industries”.

Notably absent from the statement was any mention of China’s export controls on rare earths, critical materials used across the tech, defence and energy sectors. China controls nearly the entire industry, and it has moved to restrict US access.

William Yang, senior Northeast Asia analyst at the Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera that Trump’s remarks showed he would likely try to compartmentalise US-China relations into areas where the two sides can work together without being overshadowed by geopolitical concerns.

Xi, while less effusive, also spoke of his desire to move towards a new US-China framework based on “constructive strategic stability”, meaning that the US and China should try to “minimise competition, manage differences and allow stability to be the foundation of the bilateral relationship”, according to Yang.

Both leaders appear to have sidestepped other controversial issues, such as the status of Taiwan, a 23 million-person democracy claimed by Beijing but unofficially backed by Washington.

Xi told Trump during their meeting that Taiwan was the “most important issue” in the US-China relationship, and that mishandling it could lead to “clashes and even conflicts” between the two sides. Beijing objects to Washington’s ongoing military support of Taiwan and has pressed the US to take a more explicit line on Taiwan’s political status.

Although the US does not recognise the government in Taipei, it maintains a deliberately vague policy on China’s territorial claims. Despite the controversy, neither the Chinese nor the US readout mentioned whether Trump discussed Taiwan or the future of arms sales – suggesting he either disagreed with Xi or avoided the topic.

Analysts like Yang say it is still too soon to know whether Trump will heed Xi’s remarks by blocking or delaying a $14bn arms deal reportedly in the works for Taiwan. The deal would need Trump’s sign-off to move forward, according to US legislators.

Xi was equally circumspect on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, which has been shuttered since the US and Israel launched a war on Iran on February 28.

Trump has previously pushed China to encourage Iran to reopen the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and gas passed each year before the war, because of its close relationship with Tehran. China and Iran signed a 25-year “strategic partnership” in 2021, and Beijing buys 80 to 90 percent of Iran’s oil annually.

Trump raised the points again in his meeting with Xi in Beijing, according to the US readout, which said the two leaders “agreed that the Strait of Hormuz must remain open to support the free flow of energy”.

“President Xi also made clear China’s opposition to the militarisation of the Strait and any effort to charge a toll for its use, and he expressed interest in purchasing more American oil to reduce China’s dependence on the Strait in the future. Both countries agreed that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon,” the readout said.

The Chinese readout of their meeting on Thursday did not include mention of Iran or its nuclear programme.

Chucheng Feng, founding partner of Hutong Research based in Beijing, told Al Jazeera that the omissions reflect that Xi and Trump still disagree on key issues, including Iran, but that the overall message from the summit was a desire to move forward.

“For Beijing, the most important thing is to find a floor for the relationship, to set up and enhance guardrails so that no surprises or uncontrolled escalations suddenly emerge. For that, item-by-item disagreements are largely secondary,” he said.

Al Jazeera’s Manuel Rapalo reports from Washington, where the first of two days of US-mediated ambassador-level talks between Israel and Lebanon concluded on Thursday. A ceasefire between them expires on Sunday, though Israel has killed 512 Lebanese since its implementation on April 17.

A third round of direct talks between Israel and Lebanon has kicked off in Washington, DC, days before the expiration of a “ceasefire” that hardly halted Israeli attacks and Hezbollah’s response to them.

The talks, which began on Thursday, represent a step towards more serious negotiations, with higher-level envoys from Lebanon and Israel taking part after the initial preparatory sessions were headed by the ambassadors of the two countries to Washington.

Lebanese officials are hoping that the two-day negotiations will yield a new ceasefire deal and pave the way for tackling a series of thorny issues, including the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon and the disarmament of Hezbollah.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who attended the first Israel-Lebanon meetings in Washington in April, was with US President Donald Trump on a visit to China and did not attend Thursday’s session.

Lebanon’s envoy heading up Thursday’s talks, Simon Karam, is an attorney and well-connected former Lebanese ambassador to the United States who recently represented Lebanon in indirect talks with Israel over implementation of the ceasefire that preceded the latest outbreak of war between Israel and Hezbollah.

On the Israeli side, Deputy National Security Adviser Yossi Draznin was set to attend.

“We do not want to downplay the significance of these talks, but they are ambassador-level talks, excluding top leadership from Israel, Lebanon and the US,” said Al Jazeera’s Manuel Rapalo, reporting from Washington, DC, adding that there is no diplomatic relationship between Lebanon and Israel.

Trump has publicly called for a meeting between Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while Aoun has declined to meet or speak directly with Netanyahu at this stage – a move that would likely generate blowback in Lebanon.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, is not part of the talks and has been vocally opposed to Lebanon engaging in direct negotiations with Israel.

A lawmaker from the Iran-backed group, Ali Ammar, on Thursday reiterated his group’s rejection of the direct talks, saying they amounted to “free concessions” to Israel.

Still, “there is optimism”, said Al Jazeera’s Rapalo.

“The cessation of hostilities agreement is due to expire on Sunday, so there is an expectation that this will be front and centre in discussions,” he said.

“Of course, the immediate objective is to prevent the situation along the border from escalating into a broader regional conflict.”

Cautious optimism

The United Nations earlier on Thursday expressed hope for the new round of direct negotiations.

“We hope that the latest round of direct talks between Lebanon and Israel in Washington, planned for today and tomorrow, will contribute to an effective and durable ceasefire and open a path towards lasting peace,” deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told the reporters.

Haq said the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) continues to observe “significant” aerial and military activity across its area of operations, including multiple air strikes on Wednesday by Israel.

“We reiterate our call on all the parties to exercise maximum restraint, ensure the protection of civilians and humanitarian personnel and fully respect their obligations under international humanitarian law,” he added.

In Lebanon, people also hope for an end to violence as the diplomatic efforts continue.

“I think people here in southern Lebanon are cautiously optimistic about the possible results from these meetings,” said Al Jazeera’s Obaida Hitto, reporting from Tyre, Lebanon.

“Everyone understands that Lebanon is not ready for normalisation, legally speaking. There is a part of the constitution that prevents Lebanon from actually having normalisation with Israel. People realise this might be a huge obstacle to move forward and find a way to live in peace with Israel.”

Still, the Lebanese population wants the violence to stop, said Hitto.

“It’s been more than two months of ongoing Israeli strikes, artillery strikes, air strikes, drone strikes, coordinated, systematic demolitions of entire towns and villages,” he said.

The Israeli army continues daily strikes in Lebanon despite a ceasefire that was announced on April 17 and later extended until May 17.

Three people were killed in Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon on Thursday, Lebanese media reported.

Since March 2, Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed at least 2,896 people, injured over 8,824, and displaced more than 1.6 million, about one-fifth of the country’s population, according to Lebanese officials. In that time, at least 200 children in Lebanon have been killed in Israeli attacks, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Thursday.

Istanbul, Turkiye – When investigations by Al Jazeera and other media outlets in 2024 revealed that Israeli-linked artificial intelligence (AI) systems such as Lavender and Gospel had helped generate thousands of military targets in Gaza, critics warned that warfare was entering a new era – one driven not only by soldiers and bombs, but by algorithms, data, and surveillance technology.

Then, in September 2024, thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by members of Hezbollah exploded in coordinated attacks in Lebanon, widely attributed to Israeli intelligence operations that had turned ordinary communication devices into weapons.

And, last year, reporting by Al Jazeera also raised concerns about the use of cloud and data infrastructure linked to major US technology companies in Israeli surveillance operations involving Palestinians.

For a growing number of scholars, economists and political thinkers, such developments reflect more than just the changing nature of conflict. They show how power in the modern world is increasingly exercised not just through military force, but through technology, finance and control over information.

That argument has revived broader debates around decolonisation – a term historically associated with the dismantling of European empires after World War II, when countries across Asia, Africa and the Middle East gained formal independence.

But many proponents of what is termed “decolonial theory” – a school of thought arguing that colonial-era systems of power and hierarchy still shape modern politics, economics and knowledge – argue that colonial power structures never fully disappeared. Instead, they evolved, embedding themselves in global financial systems, technology platforms, media networks and even the production of knowledge itself.

Dependence of Global South countries on Western technology, digital infrastructure and global markets can create new forms of political and economic vulnerability, particularly across the Global South.

“A generation may have grown up believing they had never experienced colonialism or exploitation,” Esra Albayrak, board chair of the NUN Foundation for Education and Culture and daughter of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told Al Jazeera during the World Decolonization Forum in Istanbul on May 11-12.

“Yet, mentally, they may still be living under colonial influence.”

The war in Gaza marked a turning point, Albayrak says, shining a spotlight on how international principles are not applied equally. Global institutions have so far failed to stop what many countries and rights groups have described as genocide against Palestinians.

“The world is sounding an alarm, and we can no longer afford to remain indifferent to it,” she said.

A techno-feudal era

Albayrak argues that a handful of technology companies are emerging as new, invisible centres of power, shaping how information is produced, circulated and consumed in the digital age.

She describes the digital sphere as the realm of what she calls “future colonialism”, warning that AI systems trained largely on Western-centric data risk reinforcing existing global inequalities.

“When AI systems are run by those tech companies and trained on Western sources, they risk carrying the hierarchies of the past into tomorrow’s digital world, as they now have personalised data, suppressing identity,” Albayrak said.

By this, she means that most major AI models are still trained largely on English-language and Western-produced data – a pattern critics say risks sidelining non-Western languages, cultures and perspectives.

On social media platforms, algorithms tend to amplify some conflicts while rendering others nearly invisible, effectively shaping what billions of users see, discuss and remember online.

Walter D Mignolo, professor at Duke University, argues that while what we historically see as “formal colonialism” may have largely ended, systems of Western dominance continue through economics, culture, technology and knowledge production.

“Coloniality is not over. It is all over the world,” Mignolo said, arguing that modern ideas of development and progress often have the effect of pressuring societies to conform to Western norms.

Rather than simply resisting those systems, he said, societies must find a way to “re-exist” by rebuilding intellectual and cultural autonomy outside dominant global frameworks.

Colonisers in the financial age

The March 2026 Global Debt Report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reveals that 44 countries face severe debt burdens, often aggravated by global conflicts, forcing some governments to spend more on interest payments than on health or education.

This is not a new phenomenon, as developing countries have been labouring under the weight of foreign debt for decades.

But British political economist and author Ann Pettifor told Al Jazeera that modern forms of domination are now increasingly embedded not in empires or nation-states, but in financial systems operating beyond democratic oversight.

Pettifor points to the growing influence of “shadow” banking networks – financial institutions operating largely outside traditional banking regulations – and giant asset managers such as BlackRock, which manages $13 trillion in assets.

Much of the global financial architecture now functions largely outside the regulatory control of governments, she says, including that of Western states themselves.

“This is not a state colonising other states,” Pettifor said. “This is the financial system colonising the whole world, including my country and the US.”

She argues that elected governments increasingly struggle to control key economic realities – from energy prices to commodity markets – because those systems are dictated by global financial actors operating far beyond public accountability.

In Nigeria, for example, Pettifor says, efforts to expand domestic refining capacity continue to face pressure from international financial institutions and global energy markets to keep fuel prices tied to global markets and maintain reliance on imported refined oil products, despite its vast oil reserves.

Coordinated cooperation between developing nations may be necessary to challenge the dominance of Western-centred financial systems, Pettifor says, pointing to growing efforts across parts of West Africa to expand regional refining capacity and reduce dependence on imported fuel. Yet such ambitions can also leave critical sectors dependent on the decisions and influence of a small number of powerful private actors.

Global financial markets, algorithm-driven platforms, and foreign-controlled digital infrastructure increasingly define everyday life – from fuel and food prices to the information people consume online and the technologies governments and societies depend on, observers say.

A ‘mastery complex’

As wars become increasingly influenced by AI, digital infrastructure and financial dependency, debates around colonisation are focusing less on territorial control and more on who influences energy prices, lending systems, access to technology and the flow of information across borders, observers say.

Albayrak draws a parallel between today’s debates around technology and global power and Rudyard Kipling’s 1899 poem “The White Man’s Burden”, published as the US took control of the Philippines following the Spanish-American War. The poem framed colonial expansion as a moral obligation to “civilise” other societies rather than an exercise of domination.

Albayrak said such traces of “mastery complex” still survive today, though in different forms – not necessarily through military occupation, but through technological, financial and informational influence.

But what the world really needs, she argues, is a global order built not on hierarchy, but on shared responsibility.

“The burden should belong to humanity collectively.”

The Hague in the Netherlands hosts the world’s most powerful international courts, where judges speak for the conscience of humanity. Yet we consult them only after atrocities have erupted – after wars have shattered communities and legal battles begin.

In theory, law can hold power to account. But has it been enough? Can it truly confront militarism, prevent atrocities, and protect people before disaster strikes?

Join Ali Rae for episode two of All Hail the Military, a five-part series that reveals the systems, power, and hidden complicities that sustain global militarism – and the profound impact it has on us all.

Round-trip train tickets brought down to $98 from $150, and bus fares to cost $20 instead of $80, state officials say.

Local governments in New Jersey and New York have reduced the cost of train and bus tickets for commuters travelling to the states’ joint World Cup venue during the tournament.

New Jersey Transit train tickets to the MetLife Stadium, renamed New Jersey New York Stadium for the FIFA World Cup, will now cost $98 as opposed to the earlier price set at $150 for a return fare, New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill announced on Wednesday.

“Ahead of NJ Transit World Cup train tickets going on sale tonight, NJTRANSIT is lowering ticket prices to $98 without New Jersey taxpayer money,” Sherrill wrote in a social media post.

The move followed intense backlash from local and international football fans planning to attend World Cup games at the stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, where the tournament’s final will be held on July 19.

The $98 fare, which will be charged during the World Cup matches hosted in New Jersey, is still significantly higher than the regular fare of $13 for the 29km (18-mile) round trip from New York City’s Penn Station.

When the $150 fare was announced, Sherrill defended it by suggesting the upcharge was necessary to ensure that her state’s commuters were not stuck with a “tab for years to come” for hosting the World Cup on its return to the United States for the first time since 1994.

NJ Transit officials said it would cost $62m to transport fans to and from the stadium over the duration of the tournament and outside grants had defrayed only $14m of those anticipated expenses.

“This isn’t price gouging,” NJ Transit President and CEO Kris Kolluri said last month. “We’re literally trying to recoup our costs.”

Meanwhile, the cost of taking a shuttle bus from New York City to the World Cup venue has also been reduced.

“The cost of shuttle bus tickets to and from matches will be reduced from the initial $80 round-trip price to $20,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced on the same Wednesday.

The move from the NYNJ Host Committee offers some respite for fans who would have already spent thousands of dollars on attending a World Cup game, largely due to the exorbitant match ticket prices, international and local airfares, and visa costs.

The host city officials said 20 percent of bus tickets for each match will be reserved exclusively for New York state residents. The remaining tickets will be available for all match-going fans.

The US is cohosting the tournament with Mexico and Canada. It begins on June 11.

US sanctions imposed on UN expert Francesca Albanese by the Trump administration have been temporarily ⁠blocked by a judge.

A federal judge has temporarily ⁠blocked United States sanctions against Francesca Albanese, a United Nations expert on the occupied Palestinian territory.

UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese was sanctioned in July 2025 after she publicly criticised Washington’s policy on Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza.

Albanese’s husband and daughter filed a lawsuit in February against the Trump administration over the sanctions. It argued that the sanctions were an effort to punish Albanese for bringing attention to Israel’s rights abuses against Palestinians.

In his court order on Wednesday, US ⁠District Judge Richard Leon granted a preliminary injunction against the sanctions.

He found that the Trump administration sought to regulate ‌her speech because of the “idea or message expressed”.

“Albanese has done nothing more than speak,” judge Leon wrote in his memorandum opinion. “It is undisputed that her recommendations have no binding effect on the ICC’s actions – they are nothing more than her opinion.”

Albanese, who said the US sanctions were “calculated to weaken my mission” when they were first imposed, celebrated the ruling on social media.

“Thanks to my daughter and my husband for stepping up to defend me, and everyone who has helped so far,” Albanese said in a statement on X.

“Together we are One.”

Since 2022, Albanese, a legal scholar, has served as the special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, where she monitors human rights abuses against Palestinians. The UN Human Rights Council selected her for the position.

The Trump administration sanctioned her last July, calling her “unfit” for her role and accusing her of “biased and malicious activities” against the US and its ally, Israel. Albanese had also recommended that the International Criminal Court (ICC) pursue war crimes prosecutions against Israeli and US nationals.

The sanctions barred the Italian lawyer and human rights expert from entering the US, using US banks and payment systems, and prevented anyone else in the US from doing business with her.

Albanese’s husband and her daughter, a US citizen, claimed in the lawsuit that the US ⁠sanctions were “effectively debanking her and making it nearly impossible to meet the needs of her daily life”.

The next global food crisis is unfolding in a narrow stretch of water.

The United Nations warns that if fertilisers cannot pass through the Strait of Hormuz within just a few weeks, the world could face mass starvation.

It says the consequences could be severe if shipping disruptions linked to the Iran conflict drag on.

Food prices are already at a three-year high, while fertiliser costs critical for agriculture have rocketed.

Aid agencies fear a prolonged disruption could push tens of millions more people into hunger.

For vulnerable economies already struggling with debt and high import costs, the risks are growing fast.

Amid an oil blockade against the island, the US blames Cuba’s communist leadership for ‘standing in the way’ of aid.

The United States has offered $100m in humanitarian assistance to Cuba on the condition that the island’s communist government agrees to “meaningful reforms”.

The sum was made public in a statement from the US State Department on Wednesday, though the administration of President Donald Trump underscored it had made the offer privately in the past.

But the $100m comes with strings: namely, that Cuba’s government commits to Trump-approved changes.

“Today, the Department of State is publicly restating the United States’ generous offer to provide an additional $100 million in direct humanitarian assistance to the Cuban people,” the statement said.

“The decision rests with the Cuban regime to accept our offer of assistance or deny critical living-saving aid and ultimately be accountable to the Cuban people for standing in the way of critical assistance.”

The statement marks the latest chapter in an ongoing pressure campaign designed to destabilise Cuba’s communist leadership.

Since Cold War tensions in the 1960s, the US has placed a comprehensive trade embargo on the Caribbean island, in part as a reaction to the Cuban Revolution.

It has become the longest-running trade embargo in modern history, and the US has justified its continuation by pointing to systematic repression under Cuba’s communist government.

But critics have denounced the trade embargo as worsening humanitarian conditions on the island.

The crisis reached a tipping point in January, after Trump abducted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a close ally of Cuba.

In the following weeks, Trump cut off Venezuelan funds and oil supplies to Cuba. He then threatened economic penalties against any country that supplied Cuba with fuel, implementing a de facto oil blockade on the island.

Since then, only one Russian oil tanker has reached Cuba in late March. That month alone, the island suffered two island-wide blackouts.

Cuba relies heavily on foreign imports of oil to power its ageing energy grid. Only 40 percent of its oil supply is produced domestically, according to the International Energy Agency.

The United Nations warned earlier this year that Cuba faces the possibility of humanitarian “collapse”, with public transportation grinding to a halt, food prices soaring and public services like hospitals struggling to keep the lights on.

Trump, meanwhile, has repeatedly threatened to shift his focus to Cuba after the US-Israeli war on Iran ends, saying the island is “next” on his list of countries where he would like to see regime change.

“As we achieve a historic transformation in Venezuela, we’re also looking forward to the great change that will soon be coming to Cuba,” Trump told Latin American leaders at a summit in March.

“Cuba’s in its last moments of life as it was. It’ll have a great new life, but it’s in its last moments of life the way it is.”

Earlier this month, the US president issued a fresh wave of sanctions against the Cuban government, accusing the island of posing “an unusual and extraordinary threat to US national security and foreign policy”.

Media reports have also indicated that the Trump administration has stepped up its surveillance flights around Cuba, possibly in preparation for a surge of military assets to the Caribbean.

In Wednesday’s statement, the State Department blamed the communist system for having “only served to enrich the elites and condemn the Cuban people to poverty”.

It did not mention the US role in the humanitarian crisis on the island but instead described Cuba’s government as a hurdle to delivering much-needed aid.

“The regime refuses to allow the United States to provide this assistance to the Cuban people, who are in desperate need of assistance due to the failures of Cuba’s corrupt regime,” the State Department wrote.

It added that, should Cuba accept its terms, the $100m would be distributed through the Catholic Church and “other reliable independent humanitarian organizations”, rather than through the island’s government.

Huge crowds gathered in Tehran’s Revolution Square to celebrate and send off Iran’s national football team ahead of the 2026 World Cup. The new jersey of the Iranian national team, which will be worn in the World Cup competitions, was unveiled at the event.

The US state of Louisiana will hold several primary elections on Thursday, including for the United States Senate, the state’s Supreme Court, and a slate of local offices.

Notably absent will be the primary, in which members of the Democratic and Republican parties will select their candidates for the state’s six US House districts ahead of the general elections in November.

The primary vote has been paused by the state’s governor following a major Supreme Court ruling that opens the door to redrawing the state’s congressional district map, eliminating one of two majority-Black districts.

Rights groups have challenged the pause, saying it violates both the US and the state’s constitutions.

The situation comes amid a wider national redistricting battle, which has been shifting both parties’ electoral calculus ahead of consequential midterms that will determine control of the US House and Senate and, in turn, set the tone for the final two years of US President Donald Trump’s second term.

Here’s what to know.

What did the Supreme Court ruling do?

The 6-3 Supreme Court ruling in late April undid a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 meant to protect Black voting power from being diluted.

That can be achieved by effectively carving up areas with large Black populations to diminish their electoral influence. Black voters in the US have historically heavily skewed Democratic.

The ruling said that congressional districts could only be challenged if there was evidence of racist motivation behind how they were drawn. Dissenting liberal justices and critics have said such motivations would be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to prove.

Specifically related to Louisiana, the court ruled that a congressional map drawn in January of 2024, which created a second Black-majority district in the state, was unconstitutional.

That map was created following a legal challenge claiming that Louisiana was in violation of the Voting Rights Act because it had only one Black majority district out of six, despite Black residents making up one-third of the state’s voters.

Why did Louisiana pause its primary?

The Supreme Court ruling on April 29 came about two weeks before Louisiana’s US House primary elections were scheduled.

That left Republicans in the state scrambling to draw new maps ahead of the vote.

“Allowing elections to proceed under an unconstitutional map would undermine the integrity of our system and violate the rights of our voters,” the state’s Governor Jeff Landry said in a statement on April 30.

He said his order suspending the vote “ensures we uphold the rule of law while giving the [state] legislature the time it needs to pass a fair and lawful congressional map”.

On Wednesday, Republicans in the Louisiana State Senate advanced an initial redrawn map.

What have rights groups said?

A coalition of voting and civil rights groups has challenged the suspension of the election, charging that some segments of voters, including those in the military or casting “absentee” ballots, may have already voted.

They further said the abrupt change in date would confuse and subsequently disenfranchise voters while undermining voter education groups already distributing information about the election.

“This illegal executive order threatens the integrity of our democratic system and disregards the voices of voters who have already participated in the May primary election in good faith,” the groups, which included the Legal Defense Fund, the League of Women Voters of Louisiana, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Harvard Law School Race and Law Clinic, said in a joint statement in early May.

“By attempting to suspend an ongoing election, state officials are creating confusion, undermining public trust, and placing partisan interests above the constitutional rights of Louisiana voters,” the statement said.

What is the wider context?

The standoff in the southern state comes amid a wider, and unorthodox, flurry of congressional redistricting in the US.

While redistricting has historically taken place every decade following the US census population count, President Trump called on Republicans in Texas last year to redraw their maps to create more Republican-leaning districts.

That kicked off a flurry of tit-for-tat redistricting efforts by Democratic- and Republican-controlled state legislatures alike. To date, the US states of California, Missouri, Ohio, Virginia, Utah, Tennessee and Florida have redrawn their maps ahead of the midterms.

Republicans are expected to net more seats than Democrats in the push. While that is expected to cut into the margin, Democrats are still tentatively favoured to retake the US House in November.

A Republican senator who broke from his party to vote in favour of convicting US President Donald Trump in impeachment proceedings during his first term is facing a bruising primary challenge in his home state of Louisiana.

Bill Cassidy’s primary race on Thursday has been seen as a barometer of Trump’s continued hold over the Republican Party. Even as polls have shown the president’s approval tanking, early primary votes have shown the continued weight his endorsement carries.

Trump has backed US Representative Julia Letlow in the Senate race. State Treasurer John Fleming is also running. The winner of the Republican primary is all-but-assured to win in the general election in the deep-red state.

Cassidy had joined seven Republicans in the Senate in voting to convict Trump of “incitement of insurrection”, following his campaign to overturn the 2020 election results and his supporters’ storming of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

“Our Constitution and our country is more important than any one person. I voted to convict President Trump because he is guilty,” Cassidy said in a statement at the time.

Despite the handful of Republican defections, the chamber fell far short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict Trump of the charges, of which he was acquitted.

Initially viewed as politically toxic after leaving office in 2021, Trump mounted a stunning comeback in the years that followed, reshaping the Republican Party in his likeness.

That included the ascension of many lawmakers who endorsed Trump’s claims that the 2020 vote was stolen, for which he has provided no evidence.

Currently, most other Republican senators who voted to convict Trump alongside Cassidy have been ousted or chosen to leave office.

Among the group, only Republican centrists Susan Collins from Maine, who continues to be seen as a bulwark against Democratic challengers in her home state, and Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, who saw off a Trump-backed challenger in 2022, have escaped major intra-party fallout for their votes.

Letlow, an academic administrator who entered office in 2021, has also seized on Cassidy’s 2021 vote, saying in her campaign launch video that residents of Louisiana “shouldn’t have to wonder how our senator will vote when the pressure is on”.

A fine line

Cassidy, a physician, has walked a fine line during Trump’s second term, regularly touting the administration’s policy initiatives and appearing alongside Trump at the White House several times for healthcare-focused events and bill signings.

Still, Cassidy has had some high-profile clashes with the Trump administration. During Robert F Kennedy Jr‘s confirmation hearing to become health and human services secretary, Cassidy sparred with Kennedy over his vaccine scepticism.

“I am a doctor who has seen people die from vaccine-preventable diseases, and when I see outbreaks numbered in the thousands, and people dying once more from vaccine-preventable diseases, particularly children, it seems more than tragic,” he said during the hearing.

Cassidy later cast the deciding vote to confirm Kennedy after receiving assurances that he would not change federal vaccine recommendations. The HHS under Kennedy has since changed those recommendations.

In April of this year, Trump accused Cassidy of tanking his nominee for surgeon-general, Casey Means, who had come under fire for her vaccine scepticism and unproven wellness theories.

Trump decried what he called Cassidy’s “intransigence and political games”. In a subsequent post, he said hopefully Republicans “will be voting Bill Cassidy OUT OF OFFICE in the upcoming Republican Primary!”

Cassidy, in turn, has claimed opponent Letlow does not have conservative bona fides.

He has highlighted her past support of education diversity initiatives, which she has since disavowed, as well as her past attendance at the 2023 United Nations climate change conference.

Trump’s sway?

Trump carried Louisiana in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections with about 58 percent of the vote, and in 2024 with 60 percent.

Heading into the primary vote, the president’s overall national approval rating has tanked, hitting a record low of 34 percent at the end of April. That has come amid widespread discontent over the US-Israel war on Iran and its economic toll.

Trump has maintained strong support among Republicans, but has notably seen dipping support among independents.

Polls have shown Cassidy trailing behind both Letlow and Fleming. If no candidate wins an outright majority, the race will move to a run-off on June 27.

Thursday’s race takes place amid an ongoing national battle over congressional redistricting.

While Louisiana’s US House of Representatives primary was also scheduled for Thursday, Governor Jeff Landry has temporarily suspended the vote.

That after the US Supreme Court struck down a major provision of the Voting Rights Act, paving the way for the state’s Republican-controlled legislature to redraw its congressional map to do away with one of two Black-majority districts.

Civil rights groups have filed a lawsuit alleging the suspension violates both the US and the state’s constitutions.

In the past few months, the geopolitical chessboard has tilted dramatically, setting the stage for a highly anticipated yet asymmetrical summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, now officially confirmed for May 13-15 following statements from both the White House and China’s Foreign Ministry. Washington has repeatedly signalled the importance it attaches to the meeting, while Beijing has approached it in its characteristically measured fashion, framing the summit less as a breakthrough than as part of the broader need for “communication” and “strategic guidance” between major powers.

This subtle diplomatic choreography speaks volumes about the shifting global balance of power. For the first time in decades, it is the United States that finds itself in a position of profound vulnerability, increasingly dependent on China’s cooperation to extricate itself from a self-inflicted disaster.

The source of this American predicament is the failure of its recent military adventurism in the Middle East. Having launched an illegal, unprovoked war against Iran alongside Israel, the US military has found itself trapped in a costly and protracted deadlock. In retaliation, Tehran has effectively choked off the Strait of Hormuz, with over a dozen US warships now enforcing a blockade that has rerouted dozens of vessels, sending shockwaves through global energy markets and raising fears of a worldwide economic meltdown. Washington now finds itself scrambling for an exit.

In a striking reversal of their usual hawkish rhetoric, top US officials — including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent—have been making increasingly desperate public appeals for China to intervene. They are urging Beijing to use its considerable influence to convince Iran to reopen the vital waterway.

What makes this dynamic particularly striking is the contradiction at the heart of US policy. Even as Trump and Rubio appeal for China’s help on the Hormuz crisis, the broader US posture remains confrontational, with ongoing disputes over technology restrictions and other issues continuing to shadow the relationship. The contradiction exposes an administration increasingly driven by desperation.

Washington’s narrative conveniently frames China as the party most desperate for a resolution, citing Beijing’s heavy reliance on Middle Eastern energy imports. However, this assessment drastically miscalculates China’s strategic preparedness. Far from being paralysed by the disruption, Beijing has already demonstrated remarkable resilience. Through meticulous stockpiling, diversified supply chains, and robust domestic production, China has coped with the closure exceptionally well, avoiding the kind of immediate economic shock Washington appeared to expect.

Consequently, Beijing views the Hormuz standoff as a pivotal stress test it has already passed. Knowing the stakes, China is in no rush to bail out a belligerent Washington. Recent diplomatic engagements have made this increasingly clear. China has maintained close communication with Iran throughout the crisis, with Foreign Minister Wang Yi hosting his Iranian counterpart for talks on the situation. Rather than simply pressuring Iran to reopen Hormuz, Beijing is positioning itself to demand a comprehensive “grand bargain.” Why settle for a minor concession when you can force the US to cease its hostilities against Iran, lift its crippling sanctions, and accept a new multipolar security architecture in the Middle East?

Iran has submitted a response to a US proposal to end the war, focused on ceasing hostilities and addressing Strait security, which Trump promptly rejected as “completely unacceptable,” highlighting the continued deadlock Washington hopes Beijing can break.

China did not start this fire, but it is now the indispensable power capable of extinguishing it, and strictly on its own terms. Beyond the immediate crisis, Beijing’s ultimate strategic focus remains unwavering: the core issue of Taiwan. This broader assertiveness will undoubtedly carry over into the Trump-Xi summit. While Trump is desperate for tangible deliverables and a successful photo-op to distract from domestic turmoil, Xi can afford to play the long game.

Unlike previous administrations that settled for vague diplomatic pleasantries, Beijing is expected to intensify the pressure significantly. China will likely demand that the US explicitly oppose Taiwan independence, moving decisively beyond the current, tepid commitment to merely “not support” secessionist forces.

Recognising Trump’s eagerness for a win, the US president may attempt to use Taiwan as a bargaining chip. He could offer concessions on the issue in exchange for Chinese cooperation on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, massive purchases of American agricultural and energy products, or even help brokering peace in other conflicts.

However, Beijing is far too disciplined to fall for such short-term traps. Taiwan is a non-negotiable core interest, and any temporary trade-off would be strategically foolish.

While Trump may lavish praise on his personal relationship with Xi Jinping and project an image of amicable deal-making, Beijing harbours no illusions about the man across the table. China’s leadership understands that Trump cannot be trusted; any agreement reached today could be discarded tomorrow based on his whims or domestic political calculations. Even as Beijing entertains the prospect of a “grand bargain” and maintains a cordial facade, it refuses to structurally rely on Trump’s commitments.

By stabilising its bilateral relationship with the US over the coming months — especially with several high-level meetings scheduled between the two leaders throughout the year — China aims to secure a predictable external environment conducive to its long-term rise.

For Beijing, however, the stakes extend far beyond Taiwan alone. A key priority for China will also be securing firm guarantees regarding the trajectory of Japan’s remilitarisation. As Tokyo rapidly expands its military capabilities and grows increasingly vocal about its willingness to intervene in a Taiwan contingency, China will demand that Washington strictly curtail its ally’s ambitions.

On a broader geopolitical scale, Beijing is positioning itself as a responsible and stabilising great power, repeatedly calling on the international community to de-escalate the Hormuz crisis and prevent wider economic disruption. In doing so, China is drawing a stark contrast with a United States that is openly launching illegal wars, engaging in what critics describe as state terrorism, including the extrajudicial kidnapping and killing of foreign leaders and their family members.

Ultimately, the coming days are critical not only for the future of US-China relations, but for the resolution of the US-Israel war on Iran and the broader structure of the international order. The era of US unilateralism is gasping for air in the Gulf. Armed with strategic patience and increasingly strong leverage over the crisis, China enters the Trump-Xi summit in a commanding position.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Taipei, Taiwan – Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to seek concessions on Taiwan and US tariffs when he meets United States President Donald Trump for a high-stakes summit taking place in the shadow of the war on Iran.

Trump will arrive in China on Wednesday evening for a three-day visit that will mark the first trip by a US leader to the country since 2017, when Trump visited in the early days of his first term.

Unlike Trump, who is renowned for his mercurial policymaking, Xi is widely seen as predictable in his goals for the summit, particularly as they concern Beijing’s longstanding “core interests” related to national security and territorial integrity.

At the top of that list is Taiwan.

While Taiwan’s government considers itself the head of a de facto sovereign state, Beijing views the island as an inalienable part of its territory.

The US formally cut ties with Taiwan – also known as the Republic of China – decades ago, but is committed to aiding the self-governing democracy’s defence under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act.

Under the law, Washington has provided Taiwan with billions of dollars in arms and pursued cooperation in areas such as military training and intelligence sharing, which Beijing considers interference in its internal affairs.

The US government officially acknowledges that China views Taiwan as part of its territory, but does not express a stance on whether it agrees.

Washington is also intentionally vague about whether it would intervene to defend Taiwan if China sought to annex it by force.

In a call with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio last month, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi made clear that Taiwan would be raised at the summit, describing the issue as “the biggest risk in the China-US relationship”, according to a Chinese readout of the call.

China’s embassy in Washington, DC, reiterated that message after Trump’s departure for the summit on Tuesday, naming Taiwan as the first of “four red lines” that “must not be challenged”.

While analysts say it is unlikely that the US will change its position on Taiwan due to Chinese pressure, Trump said this week that the summit’s agenda would include US arms sales to the island, raising questions about the future of a stalled multibillion-dollar arms deal.

The US Congress approved the arms package reportedly worth $14bn earlier this year, but the sale still requires Trump’s final approval.

Xi will use his meetings with Trump to “influence and potentially convince Trump to agree to scale back, if not completely suspend, sales to Taiwan,” William Yang, a Taipei-based analyst at the Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera.

If Trump were to make concessions on weapons sales to Taiwan, he would be breaking with a longstanding policy against consulting with Beijing that dates back to former US President Ronald Reagan.

Cancelling or watering down the deal would be a serious blow to Taiwanese President William Lai Ching-te, who is locked in an intense fight with the opposition over defence spending, Yang said.

“They are hoping to first influence Trump’s decision around this issue and potentially create a situation where it will be much harder for [Lai’s] government to request more special defensive spending in the future,” Yang said.

Restoring the US-China framework

Xi is also eager to smooth over US-China relations after a tumultuous 18 months that saw Trump launch a second trade war with the world’s second-largest economy, according to analysts.

The standoff saw each side roll out escalating tit-for-tat tariffs – briefly sending duties well above 100 percent – and other punitive measures, such as export controls, before Washington and Beijing hit pause in May.

During their last meeting in South Korea in October, Xi and Trump agreed to a one-year reprieve in their trade war, while keeping some trade measures in place, including certain tariffs and export controls.

Over the past month, the US has rolled out several rounds of new sanctions targeting Chinese firms, including refiners accused of buying Iranian oil and companies accused of helping Tehran obtain materials to build drones and missiles.

Earlier this month, Beijing issued a “prohibition order” directing firms to disregard the US sanctions on its oil refineries.

“Beijing wants predictability and certainty for the remainder of Trump’s term through January 2029, because Beijing needs to be able to plan its own economic policies,” Feng Chucheng, a founding partner of Beijing-based Hutong Research advisory, told Al Jazeera.

These policy considerations include understanding tariff levels the US will apply to China and its trade partners, Feng said.

Wang Wen, dean of the school for global leadership at Renmin University in Beijing, said China wishes to return to a relationship based on “peaceful coexistence, mutual respect, and win-win cooperation”.

“We hope that this meeting will bring the US policy towards China back to these three principles,” Wang told Al Jazeera.

The stakes are high for Beijing, where the view of Trump has shifted from a “predictable transactional counterpart” to a “more action-oriented and harder-to-restrain opponent,” Hung Pu-Chao, deputy executive director of the Center for Mainland China and Regional Development Research at Taiwan’s Tunghai University, told Al Jazeera.

Restoring the US-China relationship to a stable footing is one way to mitigate these risks, Hung said.

Rather than secure concessions, Hung said, China’s priority is “trying to adjust the current strategic position and negotiating pace that are unfavourable to it, and bring US-China interactions back into a framework that it can better control”.

At the summit, Xi is likely to agree to increase purchases of US agricultural exports and Boeing planes, Feng said, and could also back Trump’s plan to create a “Board of Trade” and a “Board of Investment” to oversee US-China economic ties.

But China is unlikely to make compromises on rare earths – a sector it dominates – unless the US makes major political concessions, Feng said.

Calling for dialogue on the war on Iran

The US-Israel war on Iran will loom large over the summit.

Although not a main player in the conflict, China has been hit by the economic fallout of the war and the shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of global oil and natural gas supplies usually pass.

Beijing has called for negotiations and a comprehensive ceasefire since the start of the conflict, a message Xi is likely to reiterate in his talks with Trump, according to Jodie Wen, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

“Xi will talk about this issue with Donald Trump and say that we all know that the war has a huge impact on the world, on Asian countries and the US, so we must have dialogue,” Wen told Al Jazeera.

Trump said on Tuesday that he does not need China’s “help” resolving the war, though the White House has pressured Beijing to lean on Iran to reopen the strait.

Xi and his top diplomat, Wang, have met more than a dozen global leaders and high-level officials since the start of the war, playing a behind-the-scenes mediating role.

China has had a “comprehensive strategic partnership” with Iran since 2016, and buys more than 80 percent of its oil.

Wen, the postdoctoral fellow at Tsinghua University, said Xi is unlikely to agree to any involvement except as a mediator, which she described as consistent with China’s longstanding approach to global affairs.

“China’s foreign policy principle is non-intervention,” she said. “This is our principle.”

FBI Director Kash Patel and Senator Chris Van Hollen had a heated exchange during a Senate budget hearing after Van Hollen questioned Patel about drinking allegations first reported by The Atlantic magazine. Patel called the claims “unequivocally, categorically false.”

In a United States court, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman has rejected claims from fellow tech mogul Elon Musk that he betrayed the artificial intelligence company’s original vision.

Tuesday marked the start of Altman’s testimony in a contentious trial unfolding in Oakland, California, between some of tech’s richest and most powerful titans.

Musk, the wealthiest man in the world, has sued Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman on the basis that they “stole a charity” by shifting its purpose.

He alleged that OpenAI’s leader persuaded him to invest $38bn, based on a goal of improving humanity, only to see the company pivot to a for-profit venture in 2019.

On the witness stand on Tuesday, Altman instead framed Musk as a competitor obsessed with exercising control over OpenAI.

“It does not fit with my conception of the words ‘stealing a charity’ to look at what has actually happened here,” Altman told the court.

The two men have long had an acrimonious relationship, driven in part by differing views about artificial intelligence.

Musk — a self-described free speech “absolutist” — currently runs his own AI chatbot, Grok, which has been accused of perpetuating right-wing conspiracy theories and offensive materials.

He is seeking $150bn in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, one of its principal investors.

Altman’s testimony comes more than two weeks into the trial, which has seen him and Musk square off against each other.

In his testimony, Altman argued that Musk knew of the plans to develop OpenAI into a for-profit enterprise when he invested, and he asserted that Musk even petitioned to have a majority stake in the company.

“An early number that Mr Musk threw out was that he should have 90 percent of the equity to start,” Altman told the jury. “It then softened, but it always was a majority.”

The outcome of the trial could determine the future of OpenAI, its leadership, and products like ChatGPT. As part of his lawsuit, Musk is pushing for the removal of Altman and Brockman.

The trial comes as OpenAI prepares for a potential initial public offering that could see it valued at $1 trillion, a historically large sum.

During earlier testimony, Musk portrayed Altman as a liar who could not be trusted with the development of the technology.

“If you have someone who is not trustworthy in charge of AI, I think that’s a very big danger for the whole world,” Musk said.

Musk’s lawyer, Steven Molo, also sought to undermine Altman’s reliability during questioning on Tuesday.

“Have you misled people when you do business?” Molo asked Altman.

“I do not think so,” Altman replied.

Altman, meanwhile, sought to cast doubt on Musk’s leadership; Musk ultimately left OpenAI’s board in 2018 to pursue his own AI development.

“I don’t think Mr Musk understood how to run a good research lab,” Altman said. “He had demotivated some of our most key researchers.”

The US public, for its part, has been largely unconvinced by high-minded rhetoric about the transformative potential of AI.

A March 2026 poll by the Pew Research Center suggested that a majority of respondents in the US believe AI will worsen, rather than improve, the ability to think creatively, form meaningful relationships, make difficult decisions, and solve problems.

Just 10 percent of respondents said they were more excited than concerned about the increased use of AI in daily life.

But the industry has been quick to translate its substantial economic power into political influence as lawmakers consider how best to regulate the technology.

The use of AI has emerged as an election-season issue as the US midterms approach in November, and the administration of President Donald Trump has proposed a “national policy framework” for the technology to avoid a patchwork of state regulations.

The AI industry has become a driver of eye-watering investment in recent years, with the United Nations estimating that the global market could be worth $4.8 trillion by 2033.

Donald Trump gives conflicting messages on prominence of Iran war in upcoming talks, with his administration emphasising trade.

United States President Donald Trump has departed the White House en route to Beijing, where he will meet with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

Trump spoke briefly with reporters on Tuesday as he boarded the Marine One helicopter. He was then set to arrive in China aboard Air Force One on Wednesday, ahead of the planned meetings on Thursday and Friday.

United States officials have taken pains in recent days to downplay how big a topic the US-Israel war on Iran will be during Trump’s visit.

Beijing has made its opposition to the war clear, at times asserting behind-the-scenes pressure on its trading partner Iran. However, it has largely avoided being pulled into the fray.

In recent days, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have stepped up their calls for China to use its influence to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil supply flowed before the war began.

But Trump again gave conflicting messages on Tuesday about how much the war would feature in his meetings in China.

“We’re going to have a long talk about it. I think he’s been relatively good, to be honest with you,” Trump said of his plans to discuss the conflict – and how it has roiled global oil markets – with Xi.

Minutes later, he added, “We have a lot of things to discuss. I wouldn’t say Iran is one of them, to be honest with you, because we have Iran very much under control.”

“I don’t think we need ⁠any help with Iran. We’ll win it one way or the other, peacefully or otherwise,” he said.

Trade to loom large

The upcoming meetings will be the first face-to-face exchanges since the leaders of the world’s two largest economies met on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Busan, South Korea, in October 2025.

It is the second time Trump will travel to China as president, and the first time since his second term began on January 20, 2025. Xi is expected to travel to the US later this year.

Beyond the war, the US administration has stressed that trade will be a top subject discussed, with Trump seeking a series of business deals and agreements.

Underscoring that initiative, Trump invited an array of US business leaders to accompany him on the trip, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who had previously chaired Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Both sides are expected to seek to avoid a return to the tariff war that defined Trump’s early days in office, which saw Trump set tariffs on Chinese goods at 145 percent, while China announced a further tightening of rare-earth export controls that would have hurt US industry.

The two sides reached a fragile truce in October of last year.

China’s continued support for Iran’s ballistic programme and its defence of Tehran’s nuclear programme has also risked again derailing relations.

Last month, Trump threatened to impose a 50 percent tariff on China after reports that Beijing was preparing to deliver a shipment of new air defence systems to Iran. He later backed away from the threat, claiming that he had received written assurance from Xi that he would not provide Tehran with weaponry.

Days later, Trump said that the US Navy had intercepted a Chinese vessel carrying a “gift” for Iran. Neither side offered further details of the incident.

Xi was also expected to push Trump on US arms sales to Taiwan, the self-governing island that China claims as its own.

US president lauds Islamabad, but his Republican ally says he does not trust Pakistan to facilitate Iran diplomacy.

Donald Trump has reasserted his support for Pakistan to serve as a mediator between Iran and the United States after Senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally of the US president, disparaged Islamabad’s diplomacy.

In remarks on Tuesday, the US president lauded Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and its army chief Asim Munir, who helped negotiate a fragile ceasefire in Iran that came into effect last month.

Trump added he is not reconsidering Pakistan as a mediator.

“They’re great. I think the Pakistanis have been great. The field marshal and the prime minister of Pakistan have been absolutely great,” Trump told reporters.

Hours earlier, Graham had pressed Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth and top US general Dan Caine about a CBS News report claiming that Pakistan is allowing Iran to park military assets on its airfields, in order to shield them from potential US and Israeli attacks.

Both officials declined to comment on the veracity of the report, citing the sensitive nature of the talks between the US and Iran.

Asked by Graham whether it would be “consistent” for Pakistan to act as a fair mediator if the CBS report is confirmed, Hegseth said, “I wouldn’t want to get into the middle of these negotiations.”

The Republican senator quickly interrupted the defence secretary.

“I do. I want to get in the middle of those negotiations,” Graham said.

“I don’t trust Pakistan as far as I can throw them. If they actually have Iranian aircraft parked in Pakistan bases to protect Iranian military assets, that tells me maybe we should be looking for somebody else to mediate. No wonder this damn thing is going nowhere.”

The senator — an outspoken foreign policy hawk who has been calling for regime change in Iran — is seen as one of the most influential figures in Trump’s circle.

Graham has also been one of the most vocal supporters of the war with Iran, repeatedly cautioning Trump against agreeing to a deal that would include concessions to Tehran.

Weeks before the war broke out on February 28, Graham met the US president in Florida, where he handed Trump a hat that says, “Make Iran Great Again.”

Pakistan has been pushing to revive the stalled diplomacy between Iran and the US, following the April 8 ceasefire agreement.

On Sunday, Trump said Tehran’s latest proposal to end the war was “unacceptable”.

In late April, the US president announced he was sending his envoys to Pakistan to meet Iranian officials, but he called off the trip after Iran pushed the US to lift the naval blockade against its ports as a condition for resuming the talks.