According to David Perdue, the U.S. ambassador to China, Donald Trump asked Chinese leader Xi Jinping whether he’d like to buy American weapons. Meanwhile, the administration is holding up a record arms package for Taiwan, the democracy those weapons are meant to protect from China.
The New York Times has the story:
President Trump has asked Xi Jinping, the leader of China, whether he would like to buy American weapons, David Perdue, the American ambassador to China, said in a television interview on Sunday. “President Trump continues to say, ‘Hey, we sell arms to other people around the world,’” Mr. Perdue said on “Fox News Sunday” while discussing the state visit by Mr. Xi to Washington last week. “He actually asked President Xi would he like to buy some at one point.” ... When asked for comment, the White House said through a U.S. official that the United States had no plans to sell arms to China. The State Department said in a statement that “U.S. law prohibits arms sales to China and there is no offer or plan to sell arms to China.” …
Mr. Trump has been withholding a $14 billion sale of weapons to Taiwan, even though the U.S. government has been required by law since 1979 to send arms of a defensive nature to the island. The latest arms package was put together by State Department officials and was approved by congressional leaders early this year, but has since languished at the department, The New York Times reported. ... On Wednesday, Mr. Rubio was asked by reporters in New York about the withholding of the Taiwan arms package. He said the sale was being reviewed in light of the need for “balancing our industrial capacity and our military-industrial base” and determining whether the United States needed the arms for itself. It is unclear how Mr. Trump’s offer to sell arms to China is consistent with that reasoning.
Trump’s own response makes Perdue’s account easy to believe: after first denying it, he mused that selling China weapons might be “a good idea.” It fits his record of fawning over dictators and undercutting allies. He has called Taiwan’s arms a “negotiating chip,” and he approved the sale of advanced AI chips to China over the objections of China hawks, including some in his own party.
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