Day 75: Trump Arrives in Beijing; Iran Retains 70% Missile Stockpile Per US Intel; Iran Army Bans US Weapons from Hormuz; Kuwait Arrests Four IRGC Operatives; Qatar PM Warns Against Hormuz 'Blackmail'

On Day 75 — May 13, 2026 — President Trump arrived in Beijing for a high-stakes summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the first US state visit to China in nearly a decade, with the Iran war unresolved and Hormuz closed for a twelfth consecutive week. Before departing, Trump warned Iran: "They'll either do the right thing, or we'll finish the job." A classified US intelligence assessment — reported by multiple outlets — revealed Iran retains approximately 70% of its prewar missile stockpile, 30 of 33 Hormuz missile sites are "partially or fully operational," and 90% of underground storage and launch facilities are back online, directly undercutting administration claims of a "decimated" Iranian military. Iran's Army announced no US weapons would be permitted to transit the Strait of Hormuz into regional bases. Kuwait announced the arrest of four alleged IRGC operatives who infiltrated Bubiyan Island, two of them identified as Naval Colonels, planning "hostile activities." Qatar's prime minister warned Iran not to use the Strait of Hormuz as a weapon to "pressure or blackmail Gulf countries." Iran and Oman held a legal-technical meeting on Hormuz sovereign rights and safe passage. A third round of US-Israel-Lebanon peace talks was set for Washington on May 14–15.

May 13, 2026 — Day 75 — opened with President Trump boarding Air Force One for Beijing and closing with the most detailed public intelligence picture yet of Iran's undiminished military capacity. The day crystallised the central paradox of the war's twelfth week: the more Washington claimed Iran had been broken, the more the evidence suggested otherwise. ## Trump Arrives in Beijing — "We'll Finish the Job" Air Force One landed at Beijing Capital International Airport at approximately 7:50 p.m. local time (07:50 ET). Some 300 Chinese children in blue and white uniforms waved American and Chinese flags as Trump descended the steps, where he was greeted by Chinese Vice President Han Zheng. A military honour guard and brass band performed on the tarmac. Trump was accompanied by Eric Trump, Lara Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and a business delegation that included Apple CEO Tim Cook, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Before departing Washington, Trump delivered the sharpest ultimatum of the week: "They'll either do the right thing, or we'll finish the job." Asked whether he needed China's help on Iran, Trump replied: "I don't really think so — but we're going to have a long talk about it." The two-day summit — set to include bilateral meetings at the Great Hall of the People on May 14, a state banquet, and a working lunch on May 15 — is Trump's first visit to China since 2017. Analysts had long described it as the informal diplomatic deadline for the Iran conflict: if no resolution existed by the summit's opening day, Xi would have maximum leverage to position China as the indispensable mediator. That deadline has now arrived, unmet. The Council on Foreign Relations assessed that "at the Trump-Xi Summit, China will have the upper hand," noting that Washington's unresolved war, high domestic inflation, and political vulnerability gave Beijing structural leverage in every dimension of the talks — trade, Taiwan, and Iran included. China imports approximately half its crude oil and a third of its LNG from Middle Eastern suppliers, giving Xi his own incentive to see Hormuz reopened — but on terms Beijing could claim credit for, not Washington. ## US Intelligence: Iran Retains 70% Missile Stockpile — Trump's "Decimated" Claim Shattered The day's most consequential development came from classified US intelligence assessments, first reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Japan Times, and i24NEWS, and widely confirmed by May 13. According to the intelligence findings — compiled from satellite imagery, signals intelligence, and human reporting in early May — Iran has: - Retained approximately **70% of its prewar missile stockpile**, encompassing both ballistic missiles capable of targeting Israel and Gulf states and cruise missiles for shorter-range land and maritime targets. - Preserved approximately **70% of its mobile launch vehicles** across the country. - Regained access to **30 of 33 Hormuz missile sites** — the facilities that could directly threaten US warships and commercial shipping in the narrowest passage of the strait. - Restored **approximately 90% of underground missile storage and launch facilities** nationwide, now assessed as "partially or fully operational." The assessments directly contradict months of public statements from President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who repeatedly told the American public that the Iranian military was "decimated," "no longer a threat," and had been reduced to "rubble." The intelligence community's findings — accepted as current by senior officials — suggest that the 39-day air campaign of March–April 2026 degraded Iran's missile infrastructure significantly but did not eliminate it, and that Iran's engineering corps has been systematically restoring access to surviving facilities since the April 7 ceasefire. Pentagon officials did not publicly comment on the reports. ## Iran's Army: No US Weapons Will Transit Hormuz into Regional Bases In a significant expansion of Iran's Hormuz posture, Iranian Army spokesman Brigadier General Mohammad Akraminia stated publicly on May 13: "From now on, we will not allow American weapons to transit the Strait of Hormuz and enter regional bases." The statement marked the first explicit Iranian declaration that the Hormuz closure — previously framed primarily as affecting commercial shipping — extended to prohibiting US military logistics through the strait. Iran's Army characterised the Strait of Hormuz as being "under the coordinated strategic control of the Iranian Armed Forces," citing sovereign rights over Iranian territorial waters. The declaration creates a new challenge for US Central Command, which has relied on the Strait of Hormuz as a logistics corridor for pre-positioned military equipment in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the UAE. US officials had not, as of Day 75, publicly confirmed whether any US military logistics shipments had attempted to transit the strait since the ceasefire. ## Kuwait Arrests Four Alleged IRGC Operatives at Bubiyan Island Kuwait's Foreign Ministry announced on May 13 that four individuals allegedly affiliated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had been arrested after attempting to infiltrate Bubiyan Island — Kuwait's largest island in the Persian Gulf — earlier in the month. Two of the four identified themselves as IRGC Naval Colonels. According to Kuwait's Ministry of Interior, the four were reportedly tasked with conducting "hostile operations" within Kuwaiti territory. Kuwait summoned the Iranian chargé d'affaires and filed a formal diplomatic protest. Iran had not publicly commented on the arrests by the end of Day 75. The revelation came days after Kuwait had on Day 73 (May 11) activated air defences against Iranian drones that entered Kuwaiti airspace — the first confirmed Iranian drone incursion into Kuwait of the war. The double incident — aerial and ground infiltration within 48 hours — marked the most serious escalation in Iranian-Kuwaiti tensions since the war began. ## Qatar PM: Iran Should Not Use Hormuz to "Blackmail" Gulf At a high-level security summit in Doha, Qatar's Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani issued a sharp public warning to Tehran: "Iran should not use this strait as a weapon to pressure or to blackmail the Gulf countries." The statement — unusually direct for Gulf diplomatic language — reflected growing frustration among Gulf states, which have historically avoided explicit public confrontation with Iran. Qatar, unlike the UAE, had not been struck by Iranian missiles but has had shipping in its waters targeted. At a separate session, Qatar's prime minister reiterated that "a return to war would only lead to further destruction" — signalling that while Doha backed de-escalation, it was not willing to tolerate indefinite Iranian leverage over Gulf economic life. ## Iran-Oman Talks: Hormuz Sovereign Rights and Safe Passage An Iranian legal-technical delegation met with Omani counterparts in Muscat on May 13 to discuss the legal framework governing the Strait of Hormuz, arrangements for the safe passage of vessels, and the sovereign rights of both Iran and Oman over the waterway. The Iranian delegation was headed by Abbas Baqerpour, Director-General for International Legal Affairs at Iran's Foreign Ministry, and subsequently met with Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi. Iran and Oman have territorial waters on opposite sides of the strait, and both have long asserted co-jurisdiction. The talks reflected Iran's effort to establish a legal architecture for a post-war Hormuz regime that would entrench Iranian oversight — a position that directly conflicts with the US and allied coalition's insistence that the strait must return to freedom of navigation without Iranian gatekeeping. Mehr News Agency reported that the talks included discussion of arrangements for resuming safe commercial transit — the first reported bilateral mechanism to discuss operational conditions for Hormuz reopening that did not involve the US or the multinational maritime coalition. ## Lebanon-Israel: Third Round of Washington Talks Set for May 14–15 The United States State Department confirmed that a third round of direct US-Israel-Lebanon negotiations would be held in Washington on May 14 and 15, building on the April 23 round that Trump had personally chaired. Both delegations were expected to engage in "detailed discussions aimed at advancing a comprehensive peace and security agreement." In parallel, the Israel Defence Forces continued operations in southern Lebanon, where the IDF had earlier in the week completed a weeklong Golani Brigade raid beyond the Litani River. The Washington Post on May 13 published a detailed investigation into Hezbollah's fiber-optic FPV drone campaign, noting that the unjammable drone attacks had now killed at least four Israeli soldiers and a contractor since the April 16 Lebanon ceasefire, and that Israeli military engineers had not identified a reliable countermeasure. Lebanese officials continued to press the US ambassador in Beirut to restrain Israeli operations in south Lebanon. Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem reiterated that Hezbollah's weapons were "not part of any negotiations" between Lebanon and Israel, vowing that fighters would make the battlefield "hell" for Israeli forces if talks collapsed. ## US Strategic Petroleum Reserve: 53 Million Barrel Release The US Department of Energy announced the release of more than 53 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve on loan to multiple energy companies, in an effort to ease global markets disrupted by the Hormuz closure now entering its twelfth consecutive week. The release was the largest single SPR drawdown of the Iran war, reflecting the administration's acknowledgment that energy markets could not wait for a diplomatic resolution. Brent crude, which had peaked above $111/barrel during the Project Freedom escalation in early May, was trading near $107–108/barrel on May 13. US gas prices remained at approximately $4.50 per gallon. ## Eastern Perspectives IRNA and PressTV framed the US intelligence report on Iran's missile retention as "definitive proof that the Zionist-American aggression failed to achieve its stated military objectives," and ran Army spokesman Akraminia's Hormuz statement under the headline "Iran Asserts Sovereignty: American Military Logistics Will Not Transit the Strait." Iran's state media described Trump's departure for Beijing as "a sign of desperation — the aggressor seeking China's help to escape a war he started and cannot finish." Al Mayadeen described the Kuwait IRGC arrests as "fabricated provocations designed to build the diplomatic case for a renewed American attack on Iran," and said Iran's legal talks with Oman reflected "Tehran's sovereign right to co-administer the waters of the Strait of Hormuz." Global Times framed the Trump-Xi summit as "an opportunity for China to demonstrate the statesmanship and strategic patience that Washington lacks," and noted that China's refusal to suspend oil purchases from Iran — backed by the blocking rule invoked on May 12 — gave Beijing "unique leverage over both parties." The paper framed Xi's hosting of Trump as evidence that "the United States has come to China, hat in hand." TASS cited Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov noting that the intelligence revelations about Iran's surviving missile capability "confirm what Russia has said from the beginning: military force cannot resolve political disputes," and called for an immediate return to comprehensive negotiations. Anadolu Agency reported that Qatar's "blackmail" warning reflected "a deepening fracture in Gulf solidarity with Iran's position" and that Kuwait's IRGC arrests "could be used by Washington to justify renewed military pressure on Tehran." Turkey's TRT World noted that Lebanon-Israel talks in Washington coinciding with the Trump-Xi summit created "a rare window where multiple conflict tracks could move simultaneously — or collapse together."