Trump Rejects US Envoy's Claim That He Offered to Sell Arms to China During Chinese President's State Visit

Washington: President Donald Trump on Monday disputed an account from his own ambassador to China, David Perdue, who had claimed Trump offered to sell American weapons to Chinese President Xi Jinping during Xi's state visit to Washington last week.

Perdue told Fox News on Sunday that Trump had raised the idea with Xi, framing it as one of many transactions the US regularly has with countries around the world, and adding that discussions about broader arms sales came up when the two leaders met. When asked about the remarks in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump appeared confused, initially asking whether the reporter meant Taiwan rather than China, before saying he had never heard of such an offer and would need to ask Perdue about it directly. He went on to suggest that China would probably want to buy American equipment and mused that selling weapons to Beijing might not be a bad idea, while maintaining that no such discussion had actually taken place.

Any such sale would upend decades of US policy, since Washington has maintained an arms embargo against China since 1989, following the Tiananmen Square crackdown, making weapons sales to Beijing illegal under current law. The State Department moved quickly to distance the administration from Perdue's account, stating plainly that US law prohibits arms sales to China and that no offer or plan exists.

The episode adds to a pattern of mixed signals from the Trump administration on China policy, coming just days after Xi's high-profile Washington visit, during which analysts noted Trump secured relatively little concrete progress on key issues, including Taiwan.