Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi attends a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, June 23, 2025. Sergei Karpukhin | Via Reuters, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi will visit China on Wednesday for talks, Beijing’s Foreign Ministry announced. China, which is diplomatically aligned with Iran and economically exposed to the Middle East conflict, has continued to call for a ceasefire and a negotiated settlement that defends Tehran’s sovereignty and reopens the Strait of Hormuz. “Iranian Foreign Minister Araqchi will visit China on September 16, and Wang Yi, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Foreign Minister, will hold talks with him,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in a brief statement published in the It comes after President Donald Trump on Sunday dismissed Wall Street Journal reports that Beijing had provided Iran with satellite images of a base in Jordan, aiding an Iranian attack that killed three American soldiers in July. Trump is expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the United States on September 24, although Beijing has not yet confirmed the meeting. US Counts Cost of War with Iran Iranian attacks have damaged and destroyed “hundreds of buildings and structures” at US bases in the Middle East, as well as “dozens” of US aircraft as of the end of June, according to a government report. general report to Congress on the Iran war on Monday that continues the conflict until the end of June. That includes $184 million in physical damage to U.S. diplomatic facilities in four countries (Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) due to Iranian attacks, he said. American ammunition expenditure during the conflict had “resulted in strategic inventory deficits and revealed bottlenecks at industrial bases for ammunition replenishment.” President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social ahead of the report’s release that the United States “is producing more exquisite, elite weapons than at any other time in our history.” The report showed a fifth-generation F-35A damaged by enemy fire, the first time such an aircraft had been damaged in battle. In late June, four F-15E fighter jets and one A-10 ground attack aircraft were destroyed. The F-35A cost $92 million per plane, while the F-15E cost $31.1 million in 1998, according to the US Air Force. Seven KC-135 refueling aircraft were damaged or destroyed, while seven helicopters and more than 30 drones were lost.
