The Trump-Xi summit will be long on ceremony but short on deliverables, with potential risks for American security. Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, warned in a statement Wednesday as Mr. Trump arrived in Beijing that the president “must be clear-eyed about who and what he is dealing with.

“President Xi heads the Chinese Communist Party, an authoritarian regime that leverages every instrument of state power — including economic coercion, intellectual property theft, military expansion, censorship and political and humanitarian repression – to undermine American workers, challenge U.S. leadership and erode the rules-based international order in service of the CCP’s ambitions,” Mr. Warner said. “The U.S.-China relationship is too important to be driven by improvisation, personal flattery, or the illusion that tough rhetoric alone represents strategy.”

National Security Correspondent Bill Gertz offered an analysis ahead of Thursday’s summit, noting how the Trump administration made a sharp about-face on China policy last year after Beijing retaliated for the peak U.S. tariffs of 145% on Chinese imports. The Chinese announced they were restricting vital exports of rare-earth minerals needed by both military and civilian U.S. industries. A truce was reached Oct. 30 at a meeting between the two leaders in Busan, South Korea, setting the stage for the Beijing summit. A reciprocal U.S. visit by Mr. Xi is expected later this year.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testified to the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee Tuesday that the Pentagon has a “plan to escalate” the U.S. war on Iran if Tehran does not concede to U.S. demands that the Islamic republic dismantle its nuclear enrichment program, end its support for regional militants and stop trying to disrupt shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

While Mr. Hegseth said the fragile U.S.-Iran ceasefire is still in place, Mr. Trump echoed the defense secretary’s threat of escalation before heading to China Tuesday night, telling reporters outside the White House that U.S. and Iranian officials are “either going to make a deal, or they’re going to be decimated.” 

Details of talks between the two sides have not been made public, but reports indicate Iran is demanding U.S. recognition of Tehran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz, an elimination of sanctions and war reparations. The Trump team has offered a 30-day pause on the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, giving negotiators time to hammer out a comprehensive peace agreement.

The U.S.-Iran war is supercharging geopolitical rivalries in the Middle East. At a moment when Iran’s military and its proxies have been knocked off balance, Israel and Turkey, both key U.S. allies, are accelerating a struggle for regional dominance that has the two longtime antagonists increasingly butting heads, from Syria to the Horn of Africa.

Foreign Affairs Correspondent Vaughn Cockayne examines how prominent Israelis and pro-Israel voices in the West are working to cast Turkey as a dangerous emerging Islamic power, one that could potentially step into Iran’s role as a terror sponsor as Iran rebuilds.

“A new Turkish threat is emerging. … Turkey is the new Iran,” former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in February. Ankara, meanwhile, has increasingly raised concerns, especially in recent weeks, that Israel is using the war against Iran to justify expansionist designs across the region.

South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back says Seoul may offer support for the U.S.-led effort to guide commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz after a South Korean vessel came under fire in the waterway last week.

In remarks Wednesday, Mr. Ahn did not confirm if South Korea would contribute vessels and troops before a U.S.-Iran peace agreement is signed but said Seoul could provide military personnel and assets along with information-sharing programs.

The comments come after a South Korean ship, the HMM Namu, was targeted by Iranian missile and drone attacks last week as it traveled in the Strait of Hormuz. The explosions from the attack caused a fire but resulted in no casualties.

Washington Times columnist and Threat Status opinion contributor Clifford D. May has drafted an Iran speech for Mr. Trump, asserting — among other things — that the president should directly address the Iranian people with the following: “You are not our enemies. You are a great people with a great history going back thousands of years.

“But thanks to the mullahs, a third of you now live in poverty. Regime thugs have slaughtered tens of thousands of you — in the streets, even in hospitals — for the crime of wanting to be free from oppression. They’re still murdering your people — including beautiful women and innocent children,” Mr. May, founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote in a Times op-ed.

“They took Iran’s natural wealth and spent it arming terrorists — Hezbollah, which has turned Lebanon into a failed state; the Houthis, who have turned Yemen into a failed state; the Shiite militias that prevent Iraq from becoming free. Maximum pressure on the regime means maximum support for you, the Iranian people, because you don’t chant ‘Death to America!’ You chant ‘Women, life, freedom!’ We can be great friends.”

• May 14 — Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa on Security in the Western Hemisphere, Atlantic Council

• May 14 — Offset Symposium 2026: Scaling Software Advantage Across the Mission, Second Front

• May 15 — What Did the Trump-Xi Summit Achieve? Center for Strategic & International Studies

• May 15 — North Korea Diplomacy in a Shifting Geopolitical Order, Brookings Institution

• May 15 — Decoding the Trump-Xi Summit: What’s Next for U.S.-China Relations, Stimson Center

• May 18-21 — Special Operations Forces Week 2026, Global SOF Foundation

• May 19 — Environmental Agendas, Geopolitical Ends: Climate Policy and Great Power Competition, Hudson Institute