BEIJING — President Donald Trump will land in China this week to familiarly regal pomp and radically changed geopolitics relative to his last visit in 2017.

Just nine months after taking the oath of office for the first time, Trump came to Beijing seeking to leverage his growing relationship with his Chinese counterpart and the looming threat of tariffs to force concessions.

Now, Trump will meet with President Xi Jinping as a wartime president looking for help to end the conflict in Iran from a country that purchases Iran’s sanctioned oil and has indirectly sent it weapons.

“It is obvious that the Iran [war] is going to hang over it,” said one former Trump senior trade official. “I think it’s not a helpful development for the United States, because now the capital is going to be spent on getting China to be productive.”

Trump has thus far found it difficult to permanently end the war on terms that he’d be willing to accept. Weeks of back-and-forth with Tehran and its hardened regime haven’t resulted in the Strait of Hormuz reopening, which continues to drive American gas prices higher. And as one of Iran’s remaining allies, Beijing is well-positioned to push Iran, if it chooses to.

Trump’s first-term visit to China was intended to show the American president had something his predecessor did not: a growing chemistry with the authoritarian leader that one day Trump would call a friendship.

“We’re going to have a meeting with President Xi. It’s going to be, I think, quite amazing. He’s been a friend of mine,” Trump said in the Oval Office last week.

But senior U.S. officials say Trump will “apply pressure” to Xi over Iran, after the Treasury Department last week leveled new sanctions against several companies, including some based in China and Hong Kong that the U.S. believes help fuel Iran’s weapons program.

The president made this trip a reality, calling it “very important” despite the turbulent times at home. In recent days, when asked by reporters if the ongoing war would alter the China visit, the president said, “No. … It’s going to be amazing.”

The pair last met in October on the sidelines of a summit in South Korea. And Trump’s initial trip this year was scheduled in March, but strikes on Iran led to a postponement.

“The reality is the relationship with China is immensely important. I mean, more important long term than what’s going on with Iran,” a senior administration official told NOTUS. “We need to address the China thing. We can’t keep putting them off.”

On a call ahead of the trip, senior U.S. officials said there was no reason for the president to put it off again.

“Why would he not continue with all the other duties that he has as a U.S. president? I don’t think he has the luxury to focus on just one sort of soda straw issue,” another senior official said.

Trump’s former national security adviser — and sometimes critic — John Bolton, put it more succinctly in a text to NOTUS: “An American President isn’t tied to his desk in wartime - ask Franklin Roosevelt!”

China, too, current and former officials tell NOTUS, has a lot to lose. Experts believe China has several months of oil reserves for situations such as this. Beijing is a major buyer of oil through the Strait of Hormuz and sanctioned Iranian oil. In another instance of a tit-for-tat between Washington and Beijing, China recently told its refineries that purchase oil from the Islamic Republic to ignore recent sanctions from the U.S. And it has built a tranche of wind and solar power to help keep the country running.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi traveled to Beijing a week ago and met with Xi. While guest-hosting a White House briefing last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he hoped that China was direct in its message.

“I hope the Chinese tell him what he needs to be told, and that is that what you are doing in the straits is causing you to be globally isolated, you’re the bad guy in this,” Rubio told reporters.

The former trade official, who focuses on China, doubted that it was the case.

“I don’t think [China is] going to all of a sudden get tough in their messaging on the Iranian government. But will they help President Trump relieve global oil prices while at the same time giving themselves more access to the oil that they typically use in the normal function of their economy? Yeah, I think they will,” the former trade official said. “The question is, what are they going to extract for that?”

Iran could be the most pressing issue discussed, but it’s far from the only. The trip is meant to prioritize “reciprocity and fairness,” according to a White House spokesperson. It will feature a mix of talks on agreements about aerospace, agriculture, and energy, as well as talks of a board of trade and board of investment, though a senior U.S. official downplayed whether an announcement would be released for those issues due to the work that would still need to be done.

“The American people can expect the president to deliver more good deals on behalf of our country. These agreements will further rebalance trade with China while putting American workers, farmers and families first and safeguarding U.S. economic strength in national security,” said Anna Kelly, a White House spokesperson.

Rare earth minerals, artificial intelligence, China’s nuclear program and Taiwan are also expected to come up, according to officials. Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg is expected to be on the trip, a source familiar with the matter told NOTUS, as the U.S. is pushing China to purchase American-made airplanes. Tesla’s Elon Musk and Apple’s Tim Cook are among other business executives who are expected to be part of the American delegation, CNBC reported Monday.

Few experts on the U.S.-China relationship expect the two-day visit to yield a dramatic trade deal, though they stressed there are outstanding issues Trump supporters would like to see him resolve.

“Is there going to be a substantive agreement on certain terms? Or are we going to just tout commercial success, but we don’t deal with the underlying problems in the relationship like vulnerability of critical minerals, vulnerability on pharmaceuticals and lack of market access?” the senior administration official said. “China promises market access, but they don’t provide it.”

Others who spoke to NOTUS see the stabilization of a once-fraught relationship as the most important — and most likely result — of the president’s trip.

“It’s the most consequential relationship in the world. It needs stability, like the risk of something going wrong is catastrophic. So you need that kind of leader-level touch point,” said the former trade official.

One way to gauge if the trip was a success is whether the pair issued joint statements along the way, according to Michael Beeman, a senior trade official during Trump’s first term.

“There’s a lot to gain and a lot potentially to lose if the meeting ends without any kind of clear way of creating a new, managed relationship, and if we return to individual, unilateral actions and statements,” he said. “I think many will be looking for some kind of signal that the U.S. and China are going to not set aside differences, but are going to begin to talk about how some differences may be able to be managed.”