President Trump’s visit to Beijing was a strategic diplomatic engagement that advanced his top priority of correcting a decades-old economic imbalance that “hollowed out” crucial American industries, U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue said Sunday.
He called the trip historic — the first presidential trip to China in nine years — and described the president’s talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping as “candid, cordial and consequential.”
“The first thing you have to realize is it’s going to be very difficult to run independent of China. They’re the second largest economy in the world, 1.4 billion people,” Mr. Perdue said on “Fox News Sunday.” “But what President Trump is doing is trying to correct the malaise in the United States over the last 25 years, where we saw some of our strategic industries hollowed out by the Chinese.”
He cited four areas of U.S. strategic vulnerability: rare earth elements, magnets, commercial shipbuilding and pharmaceuticals.
Mr. Trump wrapped up his historic visit to Beijing on Friday, saying he’s made important progress to stabilize U.S.-China relations, which only a few years ago were at the lowest level in decades.
“We’ve settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to settle, and the relationship is a very strong one,” Mr. Trump said before the final bilateral talks Friday.
The leaders discussed thorny issues, ranging from the Iran war, China’s desire to annex Taiwan and trade during Mr. Trump’s two-day visit to Beijing.
Neither side announced breakthroughs, but both sides praised the meeting as productive. Mr. Xi also accepted Mr. Trump’s invitation to visit the White House on Sept. 24.
Given the state of relations between Washington and Beijing under President Biden, the fact that both leaders hailed the visit as positive and spoke of each other fondly could be cheered as a victory — especially as conflicts rage in Europe and the Middle East.
“The summit produced modest, marketable and managed outcomes, which is about all the U.S.-China relationship can bear right now,” said Craig Singleton, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Mr. Xi spoke forcefully about China’s claim to Taiwan, warning of a potential conflict with the U.S. if Mr. Trump proceeds with a planned arms sale to Taiwan.
“I heard him out,” Mr. Trump said after the summit. “I didn’t make a comment.”
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Sunday that Mr. Trump is considering using arms sales to Taiwan as part of broader U.S.-China negotiations, noting that other presidents also paused the arms sales.
“The United States has sold arms to Taiwan for many years. It’s also had many times when it didn’t sell them,” he said, citing pauses in arms sales to Taiwan under President Obama and President George W. Bush.
“The reality is, it’s really important for the United States and China to have a stable relationship. These are two important economies,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.”
The meeting in Beijing was the first time Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi had spoken face-to-face since October, and the first visit to China by a U.S. president since Mr. Trump traveled to Beijing in 2017.
To help solidify the economic wheeling and dealing, Mr. Trump brought with him to China several U.S. executives, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook.
It remained unclear how close the two superpowers are to setting up a U.S.-China Board of Trade, which would oversee economic exchanges between the two countries for goods not related to national security.
On Iran, Mr. Trump said the two leaders “feel very similar” and noted that both countries want to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway through which 20% of the world’s oil travels. It has been effectively closed by Iran, sending gas prices soaring.
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