Arming an adversary: Why Trump’s offer to sell China weapons belies US policy
Analysts dismissed Trump's proposal as lacking any strategic logic – but said it revealed how he views Beijing.
In an offer that baffled most observers, United States President Donald Trump has made a pitch to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping that has seldom been made in modern history.
Trump’s suggestion that Beijing buy US weapons was another off-script remark that appeared to stray from official policy, prompting the State Department to clarify that Washington has no such plans.
Trump asked Xi “at one point” whether China was interested in procuring US arms, the US envoy to Beijing, David Perdue, said in an interview with Fox News on Sunday. The president reportedly made the suggestion in discussions with Xi about US arms sales to Taiwan, but it was unclear whether that happened during their joint summit last week or at another time.
Years later, technological cooperation between the US and China in the late Cold War “was motivated by a shared objective of countering Soviet power and it never involved frontline technology”, he said.