{"id":28,"date":"2026-05-24T15:11:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T15:11:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanindustryreview.com\/?p=28"},"modified":"2026-05-24T15:11:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T15:11:26","slug":"dems-see-missed-opportunity-in-trump-resisting-xis-hormuz-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanindustryreview.com\/?p=28","title":{"rendered":"Dems see ‘missed opportunity’ in Trump resisting Xi’s Hormuz help"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Some congressional Democrats say Donald Trump fumbled a chance to convince Chinese President Xi Jinping to intervene in the president\u2019s costly standoff with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n

Read more Ad in Texas GOP Runoff Attacks Cornyn on Immigration, Islam<\/a><\/p>\n

Foreign policy experts have fingered Beijing as one of the global capitals still allied with Iran, meaning the powerful Xi might have been helpful in convincing the new government in Tehran to allow commercial fuel and cargo ships to again traverse the waterway safely.<\/p>\n

Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California, an Armed Services Committee member, on Wednesday called Trump\u2019s denial of Xi\u2019s help a \u201cmissed opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident [Barack] Obama engaged with China to get the Iran nuclear deal, and we should engage with China and our European allies to end the war in Iran and open the Strait of Hormuz. We need statesmanship, and the president missed an opportunity,\u201d Khanna said. \u201cI think it\u2019s in both of our nations\u2019 interests to get the Strait of Hormuz opened. So he should have just had a conversation about what Xi thought it would take to get that achieved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khanna\u2019s assessment came after Trump on May 15 told reporters traveling back from his two-day Beijing summit that Xi had offered to help with the strait. Trump declined.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not asking for any favors. Because when you ask for favors, you have to do favors in return, and we don\u2019t need favors,\u201d Trump said on Air Force One when asked if Xi had offered to lend a hand to open the vital energy chokepoint.<\/p>\n

One week after that revelation, Trump has shown no signs of reversing himself \u2014 while also painting a questionable picture about what has been happening off the Iranian coastline.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have total control of the Strait of Hormuz, as you know, with our blockade,\u201d Trump said Thursday during an event in the Oval Office, despite shipping firms being unable to insure their vessels stranded in Persian waters after threats from Iranian missile and drone attacks. \u201cThe blockade has been 100 percent effective. Nobody\u2019s been able to get through. It\u2019s like a steel wall, it\u2019s our Navy,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

The president denied reports that Iranian officials have been slapping hefty tolls in return for allowing a smaller-than-normal number of ships to traverse the strait. Trump also described his ongoing plan to use the U.S. naval blockade on ships leaving or unloading at Iranian ports to slowly choke the Tehran government economically until they open the strait.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re losing a lot of money,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cThere hasn\u2019t been a ship that\u2019s been able to get through without our approval, and the Navy has done an amazing job. And no ship is going to Iran, as you know, no ship is going to or out of Iran without our approval.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Still, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., a member of the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, said the \u201cfavor\u201d denial was \u201cinteresting because the administration complains that other nations aren\u2019t doing enough, but if you want other nations to help, then you can\u2019t just stand back and complain when they don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI get what the president\u2019s concern is, you know, that the price that China might extract for helping might not be a price he would want to pay,\u201d Kaine added. \u201cBut why not at least find out what the proposal is before you reject it out of hand? \u2026\u00a0 It was not as big a topic at the summit as I thought might have been the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Temporary pain\u2019<\/h2>\n

Kaine\u2019s assessment, notably, was not all criticism.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president might be of the belief that the closure of the strait imposes enough economic challenge on China that they\u2019ll take action for their own reasons, rather than because [Trump] asked him to, and in that case he doesn\u2019t have to give them a favor,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., an Intelligence Committee member, said he was \u201cnot surprised\u201d that Trump had rebuffed Xi, because \u201cagain and again, if you look at the history, Donald Trump passes on the effort to work with people, particularly on international trade. I mean, he consistently rejects overtures.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI went to school on a basketball scholarship, dreaming of playing in the NBA, and I learned that sports was a team program and a team effort,\u201d Wyden said Wednesday. \u201cIt still is a team effort in areas like international trade. You\u2019ve got to have partners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oil prices have soared and remained high since Trump and Israel launched the joint war with Iran, with multiple polls giving the president low marks over the conflict and gas prices. More than half (56 percent) of those polled in an April 15 Quinnipiac University survey opposed the Iran war, while 38 percent expressed support. On high gas prices, 55 percent of participants told Quinnipiac they blame Trump a lot, while 17 percent said they blame him some. On the flip side, 16 percent said they blame Trump not at all, while 11 percent said they blame him not much.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was promised to be temporary pain to fill up seems to hurt more as time passes,\u201d Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy said in a summary of the poll\u2019s findings.<\/p>\n

While pain at the pump has some Republicans worried heading into November\u2019s midterm elections, Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., defended the commander in chief.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe finally has had the wherewithal to step up and deal with this problem. Had he not dealt with it, the pace at which [Iranian officials] were producing ballistic missiles and drones would have exceeded our ability to take them out,\u201d Hagerty said Wednesday. \u201cIt\u2019s absolutely critical that we stepped up. I\u2019m pleased to see that he did it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Tulsi Gabbard out as DNI but Trump doesn\u2019t tee up a confirmation fight<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some congressional Democrats say Donald Trump fumbled a chance to convince Chinese President Xi Jinping to intervene in the president\u2019s costly standoff with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz. Foreign policy experts have fingered Beijing as one of the global capitals still allied with Iran, meaning the powerful Xi might have been helpful in convincing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-white-house"],"yoast_head":"\nDems see ‘missed opportunity’ in Trump resisting Xi’s Hormuz help - American Industry Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanindustryreview.com\/?p=28\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dems see ‘missed opportunity’ in Trump resisting Xi’s Hormuz help - American Industry Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Some congressional Democrats say Donald Trump fumbled a chance to convince Chinese President Xi Jinping to intervene in the president\u2019s costly standoff with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz. 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