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Trump says meeting with China’s Xi is ‘scheduled’ to take place during South Korea trip
Trump-Xi sit-down may take place on the sidelines of Apec summit despite relations between China and the US hitting new lows in recent weeks
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After repeated on-again, off-again signalling in recent weeks, US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he has a “pretty long meeting scheduled” in South Korea with Chinese President Xi Jinping to ensure that “we can work out a lot of our questions and our doubts”.
This followed comments by Trump on Tuesday that the meeting between himself and Xi might not take place. The mercurial US president has a history of teasing events for publicity and in order to extract last-minute concessions from those on the opposite side of the negotiating table.
Separately, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News that Trump and Xi are in frequent contact and “it would be a shame to waste their first in-person meeting during President Trump’s second term trying to get past some problems, rather than moving towards more constructive dialogue between the US and China”.
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Relations between China and the US have hit new lows in recent weeks after Beijing has threatened to tighten its grip on strategic rare earth minerals and technology, and Washington warned of imminent sanctions affecting thousands of Chinese companies.
Trump says Xi meeting scheduled in South Korea
Trump says Xi meeting scheduled in South Korea
“I think we’re going to make a deal on the rare earth, is the least of it. Look, the tariffs are much more powerful than the rare earth,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “I think we’re going to make a deal on soybeans and the farmers.”
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