Opening Strait of Hormuz Is in China’s Interest, Says US Trade Chief

Opening Strait of Hormuz Is in China’s Interest, Says US Trade Chief - Fuel prices are rising in China, triggering long lines as residents seek to stock up on gas.

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Mar 19, 2026 - 10:50
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Opening Strait of Hormuz Is in China’s Interest, Says US Trade Chief

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U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer says he has told Chinese trade officials that it is in their interest to help keep the Strait of Hormuz open, a critical chokepoint through which a fifth of the world’s energy passes.

“There are downstream economic effects of this trade,” Greer told Bloomberg on March 18. The trade ambassador met with Chinese trade negotiators on March 15 and 16 in Paris, where he raised the issue.

“And certainly there was a short conversation saying it’s in your interest to have that, that strait open, but we didn’t get into a discussion of actual Chinese participation,” he said.

Greer added that China is “probably more negatively affected than we are” by the blockage in the strait, as the nation imports much more energy.

“It’s in everybody’s interest to wrap this thing up as quickly as possible,” Greer said.

Fuel prices are rising in China, where gas prices are set by a regime committee, triggering long lines in parts of the country as residents seek to stock up on gas.
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“There are too many people at the gas station, and we have to queue to take a number [and wait in line],” one resident previously told The Epoch Times, speaking anonymously for fear of reprisal. “You line up one day and sometimes only get fuel the next day.”

The U.S.–China trade talks came ahead of a planned bilateral meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, which has been postponed roughly five weeks after Trump said he needed to stay in place to oversee the war in Iran.

Trump has made maintaining open passage in the strait a priority as the war develops, and has called on other nations to do the same in the interest of the international community.

“Hopefully, China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint, will send Ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a Nation that has been totally decapitated,” Trump wrote in a March 14 Truth Social post.

The European Union is exploring ways to keep the passage open, noting that a blockade could lead not only to an energy shortage but also to a fertilizer shortage and, by extension, a possible food shortage next year.
A senior United Arab Emirates official has said the UAE will join any U.S.-led operation to ensure maritime traffic in the strait.

“It is an international water. It’s been like that since the fifteenth and sixteenth century [sic]. And I think we all have a responsibility to ensure the flow of trade, the flow of energy, and so on and so forth,” Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the president of the UAE, said in an interview ​with U.S. think tank the Council on Foreign Relations on March 17. “This is something that is in the interests of everybody.”

Trump has criticized NATO for a lack of support in this area, saying that most responses to his call for support came from the Middle East.

Greer also told Bloomberg on Wednesday that Trump is not discussing tariffs with countries unwilling to help secure free passage through the strait.

“He was pretty clear that he talked to allies about helping secure it, a lot of people didn’t want to do, and he said, ‘Fine, we don’t need them.' So I think that’s the going position right now,” Greer said.

Yang Xu and Gu Xiaohua contributed to this report.
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