Rubio Says Xi’s US Visit Stays on Track Despite Trump China Election Fraud Claims

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Chinese President Xi Jinping’s planned visit to the United States remains on track for September, days after President Donald Trump’s accusations that Beijing interfered in the 2020 US presidential election threatened to disrupt preparations for the summit.

Rubio made the remarks Sunday, July 20, 2026, before departing for Manila to attend a series of meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers, where he indicated he would be open to meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines.

“We anticipate that the trip is happening in September,” Rubio told reporters before departing. “They continue to send over their teams to prepare for it. I’ve heard nothing otherwise.” The statement came as one of the most consequential diplomatic test cases in the US-China relationship in 2026. Whether Trump’s public accusations against Beijing, which China called groundless, would derail a summit that both governments had been preparing for months.

Tense US-China relations have stabilized under a temporary trade truce reached by Trump and Xi in October, but big differences define ties, which many analysts see mired in a new form of Cold War. The Manila meetings, attended by Rubio, Wang Yi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, place three of the world’s most consequential diplomats in the same venue simultaneously at a moment of acute global instability, with the Iran war disrupting trade routes and creating economic pressure across Asia.

The Trump Election Fraud Claim and China’s Response

Trump publicly accused Beijing of meddling in the 2020 US presidential election in the days before Rubio’s Manila departure. China said it has never interfered in US elections and has no interest in doing so, calling the accusations groundless.

Rubio declined to say before departing for Manila whether he would raise Trump’s election interference accusations with Wang Yi if the two met. “I would never tell you guys in a press conference what we would raise in meetings like that. Those are delicate matters,” Rubio said.

“When there are two such large and powerful states as the United States and China, there will always be irritants. There will always be issues where we disagree. But I think such powerful and significant countries as ours are obliged to continue dialogue and maintain relations,” Rubio said.

The Manila Meetings and What Is at Stake

The Philippines holds the 11-nation ASEAN bloc’s chairmanship this year and is hosting three days of talks in Manila. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are among the attendees.

The US State Department said Rubio would attend the ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference, the East Asia Summit Foreign Ministers’ Meeting and the ASEAN Regional Forum Foreign Ministers’ Meeting. The department said the trip advances a US priority of a free and open Indo-Pacific.

Analysts say a Rubio meeting with Wang Yi is likely to focus on preparations for a second summit this year between Trump and Xi following their last meeting in May. Trump has said Xi will visit the U.S. at the end of September.

Another Center for Strategic and International Studies Southeast Asia expert, Andreyka Natalegawa, said a likely focus would be Southeast Asian scam centers, which the Trump administration says are costing Americans billions of dollars a year.

The South China Sea and Myanmar

The forum is also expected to address tensions in the strategic South China Sea, where territory is contested by several regional countries. Myanmar is another issue after ASEAN foreign ministers last week held informal talks with the country’s foreign minister, the first such face-to-face meeting since a 2021 coup that led to ASEAN barring Myanmar’s junta from high-level meetings. The Manila meetings also come shortly after the 10th anniversary of a landmark 2016 ruling that invalidated China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea, a ruling Beijing has consistently rejected.

The Iran War as Regional Backdrop

The gatherings come at a time of global instability, with the Iran war disrupting global trade and creating economic stress across Asia. The US military conflict with Iran, which began on Feb. 28, 2026, has complicated US diplomatic positioning in the Indo-Pacific, where several ASEAN nations rely on the Strait of Hormuz for energy imports and have sought reassurances from Washington about regional stability.

Background: The Trump-Xi Relationship in 2026

Trump visited Beijing in May 2026, his first meeting with Xi of his second term, in a visit that produced a stabilization of trade tensions but no formal agreement. The two leaders met previously in South Korea in October 2025, after which Trump announced on Truth Social that Xi had been invited for a state visit to the White House later in 2026. That September visit is now the primary near-term deliverable in the US-China relationship, with the Manila meetings between Rubio and Wang Yi serving as its most important preparatory step.

Rubio met Wang on the sidelines of the ASEAN gathering in Kuala Lumpur last year. The two also spoke by telephone following Trump’s visit to China in the spring. A meeting between the two in Manila, while not formally confirmed as of Sunday, was widely expected by regional analysts and U.S. officials.

Whether Rubio and Wang hold a substantive meeting in Manila, and whether that meeting produces any visible progress on the agenda items that a September summit would need to address, including trade, Taiwan, fentanyl and the Iran war, will determine whether Xi’s US visit proceeds as Trump has described or faces further complications from the accumulating diplomatic friction of the past week.