According to President Trump, China’s leader Xi Jinping is so happy that the US is keeping the oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz that he expects to receive “a big, fat hug” from Xi when he visits Beijing next month.

Even better, he says, Xi has personally promised — in writing — that China will not be providing additional weapons to Iran.

The Chinese supremo’s promise comes on the heels of reports that China was readying shipments of Manpads — shoulder-fired, anti-air missiles — to Iran, and that one shipment may have already been delivered.

It seems that it was just such a Manpads missile that recently scored a lucky hit on one of our F-15s, prompting a rescue mission to recover the pilots that will go down in Pentagon lore.

Trump earlier responded to these reports by saying that any country caught arming the Ayatollahs would be slapped with a 50% tariff.  

“Any country,” in this case, should be pronounced “Chy-na.”

For all the president’s sunny predictions about warming US-China relations, however, he and his advisors know that there is no country on Earth that has a worse track record of keeping its word than China. (Iran would be a close second.)

From violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968 by shipping nuke technology to Pakistan, to fragrantly violating the sanctions on Iranian oil by running a ghost fleet of foreign-flagged tankers, China seems to sign agreements only to break them.

In fact, such ploys are slyly known in China as “win-win agreements,” although not the kind that you might think, where both parties benefit.  

No, China’s definition of a win-win agreement is one where China wins first by signing an agreement that hamstrings its adversary, then wins a second time by cheating on said agreement.

China certainly has been winning twice by buying bootleg Iranian oil, paying well below market price in cheap Chinese yuan — and then winning again when the Ayatollahs send the yuan right back for cheap Chinese weapons systems that failed in combat.  

That’s why when Iran launched its short-lived effort to seize control of the Strait of Hormuz and exact tribute, it specified that tankers could only pass if they paid in Chinese yuan or cryptocurrency.

It was doing its buddies in Beijing a favor, you see, by continuing the yuan trade.  

Not to mention giving our cowardly NATO “allies” a way to cryptically bribe their way through Iran’s blockade.

Tehran’s effort to turn the Persian Gulf into its own private lake was Trump’s opening. He declared that if anyone was going to control the Strait of Hormuz, it would be the United States of America. (I suspect he was also thinking of renaming the Persian Gulf the Gulf of America. But the name was already taken.)  

All ships inbound for Iran have been told that they will not pass, while all ships bound for the other Gulf countries — from Iraq down to the Emirates — are free to transit the Strait.

The biggest loser right now is China, which purchased an estimated 90% of Iran’s oil.  

Beijing would probably prefer to embroil the US in another long, drawn-out, ground war in the Middle East, in order to pull our forces away from East Asia and deplete our munitions, but this would threaten its own oil supply.

About 50% of its oil imports, all told, come from the Gulf.

If it rearms the Ayatollahs, attacks on shipping would effectively close down the Strait altogether, costing China not only its Iranian oil, but its entire Gulf oil supply.  

If it doesn’t rearm the Ayatollahs, and they refuse to negotiate, this, too, costs China its Iranian oil because the blockade stays in place. If Iran resumes its attacks, the US takes out Iranian infrastructure — a legitimate military target — and China loses Iranian oil indefinitely.

Virtually the only way for China to secure its access to Gulf oil is to urge whoever is still breathing in Tehran to the negotiating table. My view is that Trump has brokered eight peace agreements, and that he is about to — with China’s very grudging help — broker another.

Now about that “big, fat hug” that Trump expects to receive from the Communist Party boss when he arrives in Beijing next month.

The truth is, Xi has no choice but to give Trump a hug, since the Donald has him in an energy chokehold.

Trump is taking full advantage of one of the key asymmetries in the US-China contest: The US is now the largest energy producer in the world, while China is still heavily dependent upon imports.  

And Trump is now playing this energy card to full advantage. Denied cheap Iranian crude, China has been forced to ramp up its purchases of American oil, paying the full market price . . . in dollars.

The big picture is this: Thanks to Trump’s actions, China’s proxies in the Middle East and around the world are being picked off one by one, and its Belt and Road Initiative is falling on hard times. Trump is executing a masterclass in strategic isolation of America’s chief geopolitical adversary in real time. It’s a beautiful thing to watch.

For those who lost loved ones to Fentanyl, or COVID-19, for those who are tired of China’s espionage, election interference and cheating on trade, retribution can’t happen fast enough.

You see, Trump believes in winning twice, too. First by catching China cheating, then by imposing heavy costs on the bully of Asia.

Steven W. Mosher is the president of the Population Research Institute and the author of “The Devil and Communist China” (TAN Books)