A White House official declared on Thursday that the United States and China have agreed the Strait of Hormuz must remain open, marking one of the most consequential joint statements to emerge from President Donald Trump’s two-day summit with President Xi Jinping in Beijing — and the clearest signal yet that both powers are aligned on the principle of unimpeded passage through the world’s most critical energy chokepoint.
The statement carries significant weight given the months-long standoff over the strait, which has been effectively sealed since Iran closed it following the US-Israeli strikes on the country on February 28. Around 20 percent of global petroleum and 20 percent of liquefied natural gas normally transits the strait each year, and vessel traffic has fallen to around five percent of pre-conflict levels since the closure began, pushing up oil and gas prices globally.
The US-China convergence on the issue has been building for weeks. The State Department revealed that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had agreed in an April phone call that no country or organisation can be allowed to charge tolls to pass through international waterways like the Strait of Hormuz. Xi had earlier made his position public in a call with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on April 21, saying the strait should “remain open for normal passage,” without singling out either Iran or the US naval blockade.
Thursday’s statement from the White House official consolidates those positions into an explicit bilateral agreement at the highest level, arrived at on the margins of a summit that both sides had framed primarily around trade. Chinese state media confirmed that the two leaders discussed the “Middle East situation” during the session, with Xinhua reporting that Trump and Xi exchanged views on major international and regional issues including the ongoing Iran conflict.
The agreement is significant not just in its content but in who it involves. China remains the world’s largest purchaser of Iranian oil by far, buying more than 80 percent of Iran’s shipped crude exports, and analysts have long argued that Beijing holds unique leverage over Tehran that could be decisive in pushing Iran back to the negotiating table. A public US-China alignment on keeping the strait open could, in theory, increase diplomatic pressure on Tehran — even if Beijing stops well short of endorsing any military action to enforce free navigation.
Washington has understood that it may need Beijing’s help to nudge Iran back to negotiations, but has also been aware that seeking Chinese support directly could give Beijing the upper hand in the broader bilateral relationship, according to analysts at the International Crisis Group.
For China, the calculation is economic as much as diplomatic. The Strait of Hormuz carries about a third of China’s oil imports, and at the peak of the disruption, around 13 million barrels per day of crude supply were effectively trapped — a supply shock that Beijing had cushioned by building strategic reserves of approximately 360 million barrels by December 2025. Those buffers, while substantial, are finite, and the prolonged closure continues to strain China’s energy security.
The joint stance on Hormuz does not resolve the underlying conflict. Iran has maintained that control over the strait is a core instrument of leverage in negotiations and has demanded that the US lift its naval blockade of Iranian ports before any comprehensive opening. Secretary of State Rubio has been categorical in rejecting any arrangement that normalises Iranian control over international shipping, saying the US cannot tolerate “a system in which the Iranians decide who gets to use an international waterway and how much you have to pay them to use it.”
What Thursday’s statement does is ensure that both Washington and Beijing are on record, at the leadership level, that the strait belongs to the international community — a position that Iran will find harder to argue against as it negotiates its way out of the conflict.
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