U.S. President Donald Trump said his planned trip to China later this month could be delayed as Washington sought to pressure Beijing to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, underscoring a renewed flashpoint in an already fragile bilateral relationship.

In an interview with the Financial Times on Sunday, Trump said he expected China to help unblock the strait before he travels to Beijing for a summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, which had been scheduled for March 31 to April 2.

Trump added that the two weeks to the meeting were a “long time” and that Washington wanted clarity before then. “We may delay,” Trump told the FT, without elaborating on timing.

The remarks came as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met his Chinese counterpart He Lifeng in Paris for talks about the planned summit. Beijing has yet to confirm the dates and typically announces such plans closer to their scheduled start.

The visit would be the first for a U.S. president since Trump’s last trip during his first term in 2017. It also comes five months after the two leaders met in the South Korean city of Busan, where they agreed to a one-year truce in a trade war that had seen tit-for-tat tariffs briefly soar to triple-digit levels last year.

Chinese top diplomat Wang Yi said earlier this month that the agenda for the exchange was already “on the table.”

Trump said Sunday aboard Air Force One that China sourced about 90% of its oil through the strait, framing Beijing’s cooperation on Hormuz as a matter of self-interest. The president has appealed to several European and Asian countries, including China, to help open up the chokepoint through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s daily oil supply passes.

However, the numbers suggest Beijing may be more insulated from the closure than Trump’s comments implied.

China has spent the past two decades diversifying its energy sources and building strategic reserves to cushion the blow of any prolonged disruption.

Seaborne oil imports through the strait now account for less than half of China’s total oil shipments, according to Rush Doshi, director of the China Strategy Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations. Nomura also estimated that oil flows through Hormuz represent just 6.6% of China’s total energy consumption.

Satellite imagery tracked by maritime research firms showed that Iran has continued to ship large amounts of crude oil to China since the war broke out late last month.

Both sides appeared to increase pressure ahead of the high-stakes summit in Beijing. The U.S. launched trade investigations into a broad swath of countries over alleged excess capacity and failures to address forced labour.

In a statement Monday, China’s commerce ministry said the Trump administration had “once again abused the Section 301 investigation process to override domestic law over international rules,” calling the probes “extremely unilateral, arbitrary and discriminatory.”

Beijing said it had formally lodged representations with Washington against the investigations. “We urge the U.S. side to immediately correct its wrong practices and meet China halfway,” a ministry spokesperson said, calling for dialogue and negotiated solutions.

The ministry said it would monitor the progress of the investigations closely and take unspecified measures to defend China’s interests.

— CNBC’s Evelyn Cheng contributed to this report.

Countries around the world have scrambled to cope with the fallout of the energy shock from the Iran war, imposing measures from fuel export bans, loosening refining standards, and even getting workers to climb stairs instead of taking elevators.

This comes as the Iran war stretches into its third week, and despite U.S. President Donald Trump proclaiming that the U.S. has “won,” the effects of the war, especially on the energy market, continue to be felt.

On Thursday, China ordered refiners to stop refined fuel exports so as to mitigate potential domestic fuel shortages, according to Reuters.

Sources told the agency that the ban was issued by the National Development and Reform Commission, and includes shipments of gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel.

CNBC attempted to reach the NDRC for comment, but did not receive an immediate reply.

Other major countries are considering or have imposed price caps for fuel products.

On Monday, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said that Tokyo was considering steps ‌to cushion the economic blow from rising fuel costs, including curbing gasoline prices.

Takaichi was quoted by Japanese media on Thursday as saying she plans to cap pump prices at an average of 170 yen ($1.07) per liter nationwide, adding that gasoline prices could potentially hit 200 yen per liter.

Tokyo also conducted a unilateral release of crude from its own stockpiles, without waiting for coordination with other nations.

Japan has been particularly badly hit by the war in Iran, as the world’s third-largest economy needs to import almost all of its energy needs.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said on Friday the government implemented a petroleum price ceiling.

“We have decided to set a clear price cap on supply prices to curb domestic fuel prices, which are fluctuating wildly due to the unstable international situation,” Lee said.

India also had to make some tough choices. The country told oil refineries to prioritize supplying liquified petroleum gas to the 330 million households that use it as a primary cooking fuel, over 3 million businesses that use commercial LPG cylinders.

Work-from-home orders came back in some countries after years of companies trying to coax workers back to offices after the pandemic, with Vietnam and Thailand reportedly getting employees to work remotely.

Thailand went a step further, ordering civil servants to take the stairs instead of elevators, reducing their reliance on air conditioning and telling government employees to wear short-sleeved shirts rather than suits.

The Philippines and Pakistan both instituted four-day work weeks for government workers, and Bangladesh has even shifted its calendar, bringing forward its Eid-al-fitr holiday, allowing universities to close early in a bid to save fuel.

Tehran on Sunday vowed to kill Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the U.S.-Israel war on Iran continued to threaten oil supplies in the Gulf.

“IRGC vows to pursue and kill ‘child-killer’ Netanyahu if he is still alive,” Iran’s IRNA news agency said in a post on X, referring to the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Israel in return targeted key members of Iran’s leadership over the weekend.

The Israel Defense Forces said they had “eliminated” two senior Iranian intelligence officials of the “Khatam al-Anbiya” Emergency Command.

Late on Saturday, the IDF said in a post on X that it had struck the primary research center of the Iranian Space Agency and an aerial defense system production factory.

Iran continued to retaliate against targets around the region. Israeli emergency services reported a “recent missile barrage” fired at central Israel, but said there were no known injuries.

Meanwhile, oil-loading operations in the United Arab Emirates’ port of Fujairah resumed on Sunday according to media reports, after being interrupted a day earlier due to a fire caused by falling debris from an intercepted drone.

A spokesperson for Abu Dhabi’s state oil giant, ADNOC, which operates in Fujairah, directed CNBC to the Fujairah Media Office, which did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.

The ongoing war has effectively choked off energy supplies moving through the narrow Strait of Hormuz which separates Iran and the UAE.

On Friday, Brent crude oil futures closed above $100 per barrel for the second straight day, and the global oil benchmark has surged more than 40% since the war in Iran began.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that he directed the U.S. Central Command to carry out a bombing raid, hitting military targets on Iran’s Kharg Island for the first time. Trump threatened further strikes on Iran’s oil export hub, even as he repeatedly urged allies to deploy warships to help the U.S. secure the Strait of Hormuz.

Kharg Island has been thrust into the global spotlight because it is regarded as one of Iran’s most sensitive economic targets. The terminal accounts for around 90% of the country’s crude exports and has a loading capacity of roughly 7 million barrels per day.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi took to social media to say his country is “ready to form a committee with the countries of the region to investigate the targets that were attacked. Our attacks only target American bases and interests in the region.”

In a Telegram post Sunday, Araghchi said: “We have not targeted any civilian or residential areas in the countries of the region so far,” and added, “Occupying Kharg Island would be a bigger mistake than attacking it.”

The impact of the war is now also affecting major events in the Gulf region. Formula 1 said it has canceled the upcoming Grand Prix races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia scheduled for April.

“While alternatives were considered, no substitutions will be made in April,” Formula 1 said in a post on X.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday brushed aside concerns that the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz because of the Iran war, which has spiked oil prices, would continue being a problem for the U.S. and the world for much longer.

Iran has been “exercising sheer desperation in the Straits of Hormuz,” Hegseth said at a Pentagon press briefing.

“We have been dealing with it, and don’t need to worry about it,” he said.

The trading price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil on Friday morning was around $93 per barrel. A day before the war began on Feb. 28, a barrel of WTI was selling for about $67.

Hegseth criticized media reports that claimed that before attacking Iran, the United States military lacked a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which is the world’s most critical oil shipping chokepoint.

“Of course, for decades, Iran has threatened shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. This is always what they do, hold the strait hostage,” he said.

“We planned for it. We recognize it,” Hegseth told a reporter who asked him why the Pentagon had not planned for the strait being choked off to traffic.

“Ultimately, we want to do it sequentially in the way that makes the most sense for what we want to achieve.”

Neither Hegseth nor Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine said how the U.S. would open up the strait to the traffic of oil tankers and other ships.

On Thursday morning, Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC that the U.S. Navy is not ready to escort oil tankers through the strait. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, hours later, told Sky News that the U.S. Navy, and possibly an international coalition, would begin escorting ships through the strait as soon as “militarily possible.”

Asked how soon the Strait of Hormuz would be open to traffic, Hegseth said Friday, “The only thing prohibiting transit in the straits right now is Iran shooting at shipping.”

“We have a plan for every option here,” he said. “We’re working with our interagency partners. That’s not a strait we’re going to allow to remain contested or a lack of flow of international goods.”

Caine, when asked about removing mines from the Strait of Hormuz laid by Iran, said, “We retain a range of options to solve a whole variety of problems.”

Hegseth predicted, again, that “soon and very soon, all of Iran’s defense companies will be destroyed.” He said that as of two days ago, every company that builds components of Iran’s ballistic missiles “has been functionally defeated.”

The Defense secretary speculated that Iran’s “new so-called, not-so-supreme leader,” Mojtaba Khamenei, “is wounded and likely disfigured.”

“He put out a statement yesterday, a weak one, actually, but there was no voice and there was no video,” Hegseth said.

Hegseth and Caine’s vagueness in offering either details of a possible solution to the strait’s closure, or a timeline for such a solution came as RBC Capital Markets, in a note on Friday, said, “There is significant skepticism that a robust US Navy tanker escort service will be operational soon due to capacity constraints as well as the fact that Iran’s enhanced military capabilities will pose a bigger challenge than the US faced during the Tanker Wars of the 1980s.”

The note also said that a $20 billion insurance promoted by the U.S. International Development Finance Corp., to encourage oil tankers and other commercial vessels to begin ffic to begin transiting the straight “similarly … is not generating much enthusiasm as it only covers the roughly 22 miles of sea lanes in the Strait, not the surrounding waterways, and offers neither casualty nor environmental coverage.”

“Above all, we are struck by the fact that a number of Washington-based security analysts seem to be working with longer-duration timelines than market participants residing outside the Beltway,” RBS’s Helima Croft, head of global commodity strategy and MENA research, wrote.

Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, has a new “verified” account on X, the influential social media platform owned by Elon Musk.

Khamenei, whose X handle is @Rahbarenghelab_, went on a tweetstorm Thursday about the war against Iran by the U.S. and Israel, and the Islamic Republic’s response to it.

“Dear fighter brothers! The desire of the masses of the people is the continuation of effective and regret-inducing defense. Furthermore, the leverage of blocking the Strait of Hormuz must certainly continue to be used,” Khamenei wrote in one post to his more than 44,000 followers on X. All of the posts have been translated by X from Persian.

“I assure everyone that we will not forgo vengeance for the blood of your martyrs,” he wrote in another post.

In addition to talking about the Strait of Hormuz, Khamenei urged Iran’s neighbors in the Middle East to “clarify their stance” and for those that host U.S. military bases to shut them down.

Khamenei was selected as Iran’s supreme leader earlier this week to replace his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a strike on the first day of the war on Feb. 28.

xAI, the artificial intelligence company of Musk’s that owns X, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Mojtaba Khamenei’s new account on the platform, which has the blue check mark reserved for “premium” users.

Wired magazine published an article Feb. 12 before the war started with the headline “Elon Musk’s X Appears to Be Violating US Sanctions by Selling Premium Accounts to Iranian Leaders.”

The article cited a report by the Tech Transparency Project that said “TTP identified more than two dozen X accounts allegedly run by Iranian government officials, state agencies, and state-run news outlets, which display a blue check mark, indicating they have access to X’s premium service.”

The article noted that “an X Premium subscription, which is the only way to receive a blue check mark, costs $8 a month, while a Premium+ subscription, which removes ads and boosts reach even further, costs $40 a month.”

Hours after the article was published, Wire reported, the blue check marks for several Iranian officials’ accounts that the magazine had flagged to X were removed.

Wired’s article noted Musk personally had echoed President Donald Trump in “slamming Iranian government officials and supporting the thousands of protesters railing against the regime.”

— CNBC’s Matt Peterson contributed to this article

Denmark’s energy minister urged citizens of the Scandinavian country to cut back on energy use and ditch cars as the price of oil continues to skyrocket amid the Middle East conflict.

Lars Aagaard, Denmark’s minister for climate, energy, and utilities, said Wednesday that the ongoing war between the U.S. and Iran has driven the country to lean on its oil reserves in light of “towering oil prices” with no end to the conflict in sight.

“What the Danes should please, please, please do is that if there is any energy consumption that you can do without, if it is not strictly necessary to drive the car, then don’t do it,” he said in an interview with local broadcaster DR, translated by Google.

If Denmark saves energy in the near future, there will be two positive effects that can be felt both by citizens and the government, he said.

“Firstly, it can be felt in the private wallet, and secondly, it can help stretch our reserves so that they last longer,” Aagaard said.

Similar warnings have been issued across countries worldwide. In the U.K., motoring groups such as the AA have called on drivers to cut “non-essential journeys,” and change their driving style to conserve fuel.

Vietnam’s Ministry for Industry and Trade encouraged businesses to adopt remote working arrangements and reduce travel and transport demand to ensure national energy security.

Meanwhile, the Philippine government implemented a temporary four-day workweek in certain executive branches to conserve energy and reduce fuel use.

Concerns over oil prices have remained elevated this week, as oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz ground to a halt due to the threat of Iranian attacks on vessels. A potential inflation spike could follow if the passage remains closed, and threatens to raise the cost of living, from petrol to groceries.

Oil prices jumped over 8% to more than $100 per barrel earlier on Thursday. The West Texas Intermediate was last up 4.6% to $91 per barrel, while global benchmark Brent was trading nearly 5% higher at $96.

To assuage these fears, the International Energy Agency on Wednesday agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil to address the supply disruption triggered by the Iran war.

The IEA, which represents 32 member countries across Europe, North America, and northeast Asia, said the reserves would be released over a specific time frame, depending on the needs of its member countries.

Meanwhile, the U.S announced that it would release 172 million barrels from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve, with shipments expected to begin next week and take roughly 120 days to complete.

Three more foreign ships were struck in the Persian Gulf overnight, authorities said, as attacks intensify on vessels sailing through or near the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz.

The latest incidents come after three separate vessels sustained damage in Gulf waters on Wednesday and as Iran warns oil prices could climb to $200 a barrel.

A container ship was struck by an unknown projectile about 35 nautical miles north of Jebel Ali, a major port city near Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) center said on Thursday. The incident caused a small fire onboard, and all crew were reported to be safe.

Earlier, two foreign oil tankers were left ablaze in Iraqi waters after having been struck near the port Umm Qasr, near the city of Basra.

At least one person was killed in the attack, according to multiple media reports, citing Iraqi port officials, and 38 crew members were rescued from the ships. Iraq’s General Company for Ports was not immediately available to comment when contacted by CNBC.

Shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has virtually ground to a halt since the U.S. and Israel launched airstrikes on Iran on Feb. 28. Iran has retaliated by targeting ships trying to pass through the strait, with several incidents reported in recent days.

The narrow waterway is a key maritime corridor that connects the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Roughly 20% of global oil and gas typically passes through it.

Attacks on commercial ships in the Gulf have ratcheted up fears of a prolonged economic shock.

“Get ready for oil to be $200 a barrel, because the oil price depends on regional security, which you have destabilised,” Ebrahim Zolfaqari, spokesperson for Iran’s military command, said Wednesday, according to Reuters.

Crude prices were sharply higher on Thursday morning, as traders closely monitored supply risks and appeared to shrug off the International Energy Agency’s push to release a record 400 million barrels of oil.

International benchmark Brent crude futures with May delivery traded 5.7% higher at $97.16 per barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures with April delivery rose 5.3% at $91.88.

The IEA on Wednesday did not set out a timeline for when the stocks would hit the market. It said that the reserves would be released over a time frame that is appropriate to the circumstances of each of its 32 member countries.

The energy price shock that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine four years ago is fresh in the minds of European policymakers as the conflict in Iran once again drives oil and gas prices higher. Experts, however, think this time could be different.

Fears of a full-blown energy crisis on that scale — which saw oil top more than $120 a barrel by June 2022, gas prices soar, household energy bills rise, and eurozone inflation hit a record 9% — may yet be overblown, according to investment strategists.

Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, has retreated from the near-$120 per barrel seen earlier in the week, as the International Energy Agency agreed on Wednesday to release a record 400 million barrels of oil from its emergency reserves. European natural gas prices, as measured by the Dutch TTF futures benchmark, also pulled back from a three-year high of 63.77 euros per megawatt-hour and were last seen under 50 euros per MWh on Wednesday.

James Smith, developed markets economist focusing on the U.K. at ING, said that while the initial energy price reaction appears “eerily familiar” to the start of the Ukraine invasion, the global economic picture looks very different from the 2022 shock.

“The 2022 energy crisis landed on a global economy that was ripe for inflation to take off. Supply chains were fractured, job markets tight, and fiscal policy was fueling the fire. All of that, to varying degrees, is less true today,” Smith said in a note.

The impact on Europe’s inflation trajectory hinges on the duration of the conflict, analysts say.

The ongoing shutdown of Qatari production of liquefied natural gas (LNG) — which accounts for almost a fifth of global LNG supply — and attacks on vessels in and near the critical Strait of Hormuz could disrupt oil and gas stocks in Europe for longer.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he’s not worried about Iran executing a terror attack within the United States in retaliation for the ongoing war by the U.S. and Israel.

“No, I don’t,” Trump told a reporter outside the White House when asked if he feared such a domestic attack.

Trump also touted progress in the war against Iran, which is in its 11th day, before departing for a trip to Kentucky and Ohio.

“Right now, they’ve lost their Navy, their Air Force. They have no anti-aircraft apparatus at all,” the president said. “Their leaders are gone, and we could do a lot worse.”

Trump said the U.S. military is “leaving certain things” in Iran, which could be destroyed by the afternoon, if need be, and “they literally would never be able to build that country back.”

He said the U.S. military had destroyed about 16 of Iran’s mine-layers.

Asked if Iran had mined the Strait of Hormuz, which is the world’s most sensitive choke point for oil shipments, Trump said, “We don’t think so.”

In a report Tuesday that cited two people familiar with U.S. intelligence reporting, CNN said that Iran began laying mines in the strait, albeit just a few dozen in recent days.

Trump, referring to the CEOs of major oil companies, said, “I think they should” send tankers through the narrow strait, which has remained effectively closed because of the war.

A spokesman for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned Monday that tankers passing through the strait “must be very careful.”

The Strait of Hormuz, which lies off the southern coast of Iran, connects the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea.

The insurance giant Chubb said Wednesday that it will serve as lead underwriter for a U.S.-government-led program to provide insurance to ships passing through the strait.

Trump on Wednesday brushed off a question about a report by The New York Times, which said that “newly released video adds to the evidence that an American missile likely hit an Iranian elementary school where 175 people, many of them children, were reported killed.”

Trump said, “I don’t know about that” finding, which backs up other analyses that the U.S. military was responsible for that Feb. 28 attack on the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school.

The president again criticized the leadership of Spain for not helping the U.S. war effort.

“We may cut off trade with Spain,” said Trump, who has a penchant for using tariffs and other retaliatory trade practices as leverage against other countries.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has incurred Trump’s wrath for barring the U.S. military from using two bases in Andalusia to launch strikes on Iran.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, in an X post on Wednesday, wrote that in conversations with “the presidents of the governments of Russia and Pakistan, while announcing the Islamic Republic’s commitment to peace and tranquility in the region, I emphasized that the only way to end the war that began with the warmongering of the Zionist regime and America is the acceptance of Iran’s indisputable rights, payment of reparations, and a firm international obligation to prevent their aggression from recurring.”