President Donald Trump on Monday said he is seeking to delay a highly anticipated trip to China in early April by about a month because of the Iran war.

"We've requested that we delay it a month or so," Trump told reporters at the White House.

Trump's requested delay in his scheduled March 31-April 2 trip to meet Chinese communist leader Xi Jinping underscores how the Iran war has upended his foreign policy agenda.

On Sunday, Trump told the Financial Times he might postpone the meeting if China did not help unblock the Strait of Hormuz.

Iranian crude oil has kept flowing through the Strait of Hormuz at a near-normal pace, a Reuters review of shipping data shows, though overall exports from the Middle East have dropped more than 60% since the war started. Most of Iran's oil exports go to China, according to U.S. Energy Department data.

PREPARATIONS MOVE AHEAD

Preparations for the meeting at its originally scheduled date are ongoing. On Monday, Bessent was in Paris for talks with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng aimed at teeing up trade and other agreements for Trump and Xi in Beijing.

In those talks, which began on Sunday, the Chinese showed openness to potential additional purchases of U.S. agricultural goods including poultry, beef and non-soybean row crops, one source said before the second day of meetings. They also discussed the flow of rare earth minerals largely controlled by China and new approaches to manage trade and investment between the countries.

Spokespersons for the U.S. Treasury and the U.S. Trade Representative's office declined to characterize the talks.

"Head of state diplomacy plays an irreplaceable role ​in providing strategic guidance to China-U.S. relations," said Lin Jian, a Chinese ​foreign ministry spokesperson, when asked about Trump's remarks over the weekend during a regular press conference. Both sides are communicating ⁠about the trip, Lin added.