Trump confirms possible China trip, but insists ‘not seeking' Xi summit
'The Fake News is reporting that I am SEEKING a 'Summit' with President Xi of China. This is not correct, I am not SEEKING anything!' Trump wrote on Truth Social late Monday from Scotland, where he wrapped up a five-day visit Tuesday.
'I may go to China, but it would only be at the invitation of President Xi, which has been extended. Otherwise, no interest! Thank you for your attention to this matter.'
Staffers for Trump and Xi have held discussions about setting up a meeting between the two leaders, potentially on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in South Korea, which takes place Oct. 30-Nov. 1, Reuters reported last week.
It is unclear whether any discussions of Trump traveling to China directly have been broached.
3 President Trump confirmed ongoing talks with China about him meeting with leader Xi Jinping.
Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images
3 President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping's last in-person meeting took place in 2019.
XinhuaTrump and Xi last met face-to-face in June 2019 on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan.
The US and China have until Aug. 12 to reach a full-fledged trade agreement following a months-long truce that has seen duties temporarily come down from up to 145% on Chinese exports to the US and 125% on American goods.
Negotiators from Washington and Beijing are holding a third round of talks this week in Stockholm.
'We have a good relationship with China,' Trump told reporters Monday at his Turnberry club on the west coast of Scotland. 'China's tough.'
In 2024, China was the third-largest US trading partner among individual nations — behind only Mexico and Canada — with trade between the two nations amounting to $582.4 billion.
Further complicating negotiations is Trump's looming threat to impose secondary tariffs of 100% against countries that trade with Moscow until the Kremlin ends its invasion of Ukraine and agrees a peace deal.
China and India, in particular, have continued to purchase energy from Russia throughout the 41-month-old war on Ukraine. China has also been accused of providing Moscow's arms industry with critical supplies.
3 The Trump administration is currently involved in trade negotiations with China.
Getty Images
Beyond trade tensions, US officials have repeatedly warned about Chinese cyber attacks, such as the Salt Typhoon operation that breached American telecommunications systems.
On Monday, the Financial Times reported that the Trump administration blocked Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te from stopping in New York City during a planned diplomatic visit to Central America later this year.
China has long claimed sovereignty over the island state of Taiwan, which has its own currency, military and government. The US adheres to the One China Policy on paper, which acknowledges Beijing's claim, but takes no position on it.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Long-Term Unemployment Rises In Worrying Sign For U.S. Labor Market
WASHINGTON – Signals of labor market weakness go beyond the headline numbers that prompted President Donald Trump to fire the government's head statistician last week. The jobs report released Friday showed a slowdown in hiring, a slight uptick in the national unemployment rate, and a few other clues that the economy is softening — including an increase in long-term unemployment. The number of people jobless for six months or more increased from 1.6 million to 1.8 million in July, representing 24% of the unemployed. It's the most people experiencing long-term joblessness since the end of 2021 and the highest percentage since February 2022, when the economy was still recovering from coronavirus lockdowns. Valerie Wilson, a labor economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, said the modest rise in long-term joblessness could reflect employers getting pickier about hiring as President Donald Trump's tariff regime changes the cost of doing business. 'People who have been unemployed for longer have clearly had some challenges in getting back into the labor market,' Wilson told HuffPost. 'I think that as things have softened, and employers are facing more uncertainty given the sort of chaotic nature of economic policy in this country, that it would be harder for those people to find new jobs.' The president's tariffs on goods imported from other countries are tantamount to a $1,219 tax increase on American households this year, according to an estimate by the conservative Tax Foundation. HuffPost readers: Dealing with long-term unemployment? Tell us about it – email arthur@ Please include your phone number if you're willing to be interviewed. Persistently high long-term joblessness was a hallmark of slow recovery from the Great Recession that officially ended in 2009. It disproportionately affected older workers, becoming a self-perpetuating problem as employers sought job applicants with minimal or no gaps on their resumes. Some economists worry another recession could be around the corner. The overall unemployment rate remained low in July, at just 4.2%, and the economy has continued to add jobs, albeit at a slower pace than previously estimated. Bureau of Labor Statistics data suggest the last three months were the weakest for job growth since the pandemic. Trump fired the BLS commissioner on Friday, claiming without evidence that the numbers were somehow 'rigged' to make him look bad. The labor force shrank slightly in July, helping hold down the unemployment rate even as the number of employed workers declined. Wilson noted the unemployment rate for Black Americans rose to 7.2%, up from a recent historical low of 4.8% in April 2023. 'Over the last two months, we're seeing the black unemployment rate pick up, which is another one that as that starts to rise, we start to look for signals of a broader slowing in the economy,' Wilson said.
NBC News
17 minutes ago
- NBC News
Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin urges fellow Democrats to 'go nuclear' in redistricting fight
BENTON HARBOR, Mich. — Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a rising Democratic star from Michigan, told NBC News that Democrats should 'go nuclear' to counter Republicans' push in Texas and other red states to redraw the congressional maps in their favor. The first-term senator, who was tapped to deliver the Democratic rebuttal to President Donald Trump's joint address to Congress this year, said Democrats have to fight fire with fire. 'I'm going to urge and encourage blue states like a California or Chicago or Illinois to do the same thing. I don't want to do that. I want the country to have a completely nonpartisan drawing of the lines based on the census. But if they're going to do that and go nuclear, so am I,' she said in an exclusive interview after her first and only town hall of the congressional August recess on Monday night. Slotkin argued that Democrats should go on the 'offensive' against Trump and congressional Republicans' agenda more broadly. If Republicans want her vote on a spending bill to avert a government shutdown at the end of September, for example, Slotkin said they will need to roll back health care cuts signed into law as part of Trump's megabill last month. 'If my vote is wanted, right, then we got to negotiate. And then the thing I'm going to negotiate for is returning some of that health care to the people I represent,' she told NBC News, noting that she voted against a Republican spending bill in March as well. The top Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer of New York, faced intense backlash from the base after he allowed a key procedural vote on that bill to move forward. Slotkin said Democrats are ready for a new generation of leadership, noting that at 49 years old, she's 'like a spring chicken in the Senate.' She referred to older leaders, at one point, as 'warmed over leftovers' and said younger voters relate to members who get 'technology and the changing economy' and don't 'use a flip phone.' Slotkin brought up the issue during the town hall as well. 'Let's be honest, even here tonight, right? It is a very hard thing to bring our young people into the conversation, because they're disillusioned, they feel left out, they feel like these people don't represent me,' she told the crowd, which was overwhelmingly composed of White seniors and older voters, although it was held at a Boys and Girls Club in predominantly-Black Benton Harbor. The club, which is located in Republican Rep. Bill Huizenga's district, has lobbied her to protect its federal funding, Slotkin said. One Democrat who appears to have a grasp on the demographic the rest of the party seems to be struggling with, Slotkin said, is Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor in New York City. Slotkin said she disagrees with Mamdani on many issues, but that his upset victory over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo was 'like a blinking red light.' 'It's hard to miss the message of that election, which I think was very similar, frankly, to the election we had in November. Cost of living is still the biggest issue for people that I talk to,' she said. 'It's not maybe the internet's biggest issue, Twitter's biggest issue. It is the issue that 80% of my constituents will talk to me about in the street.' Slotkin said it's not about progressive versus moderate. Like Mamdani, Trump defeated Kamala Harris in 2024 after making lowering costs central to his campaign. 'He was going to put more money into your pocket and his yard signs, his digital ads, his TV ads, they were all centered around that,' she said. 'For Democrats, it was hard to know exactly what our priorities were.' 'We had a lot of issues we cared deeply about, but sometimes, when you care about everything, no one knows what your priorities are,' she continued. 'So my strong belief is that our priority has to be the economy.' The Democratic Party is divided on a central question right now, Slotkin said: 'Is Donald Trump an existential threat to democracy in his second term, or is Donald Trump's second term bad, but, like his first term, survivable if we just wait it out? And I just want you to know, from your senator, as someone who sits in that room on your behalf, I am in camp number one, he is an existential threat to democracy.' Asked about Gaza, Slotkin, a former CIA analyst who is pro-Israel, said she would have voted in favor of blocking certain offensive weapons sales to Israel last week. She missed the votes, brought by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., which failed but attracted the support of more than half of Senate Democrats. 'It's a very dangerous thing if we have support for our relationships abroad be completely partisan,' Slotkin said, adding that she 'was glad' that Trump sent his Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff to Gaza. 'I think that's an important step to, like, see what's on the ground and just bring this thing, all hostages out, end the humanitarian blockade. Like, get it done.'
CBS News
17 minutes ago
- CBS News
Trump says Vance is "most likely" his heir apparent
President Trump said Tuesday he sees Vice President JD Vance as an early favorite to serve as his successor. A reporter asked Mr. Trump whether he sees Vance as the "heir apparent to MAGA." The president responded that Vance is "most likely" the leading contender. "It's too early, obviously, to talk about it. But certainly he's doing a great job, and he would be probably favored at this point," the president said during an unrelated executive order-signing ceremony. Mr. Trump also mentioned Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and suggested he's "somebody that maybe would get together with JD in some form." And he said the Republican Party has some other "incredible people." The president has singled out Rubio and Vance in the past, but has mostly avoided choosing a favorite. He praised both men in a May interview with NBC News' "Meet the Press" and said he didn't "want to get involved" in picking a leader, though he noted that the vice president would typically "have an advantage." Vance and Rubio are both seen as possible contenders for the 2028 GOP presidential nomination. The two were once vehement Trump critics — with Rubio running against Mr. Trump in the 2016 GOP primaries — but they have repositioned themselves as allies and defenders of the president since then. At least publicly, both men have been coy about their political ambitions. Late last month, Rubio downplayed the possibility of a presidential run in an interview on Fox News' "My View with Lara Trump," which is hosted by the president's daughter-in-law. Rubio said he thinks Vance "would be a great nominee if he decides he wants to do that," adding that he'd be satisfied if secretary of state ended up being "the apex of my career." Meanwhile, Vance told Fox News' "Fox and Friends" in April he isn't focused on 2028, adding: "When we get to that point, I'll talk to the president. We'll figure out what we want to do." Mr. Trump has also repeatedly toyed with the possibility of running for a third term — even though the Constitution forbids presidents from serving for more than two terms. Earlier Tuesday, he told CNBC's "Squawk Box" he "probably" won't run for another term.
