US President Donald Trump hopes to have a “very good relationship” with China under his administration, while also stressing the need for a “level-playing field” regarding trade conditions.
Addressing the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Trump said, “He (Xi Jinping) called me. But I see it very good. I think we have a very good relationship,” Trump said. “Trump said, noting that the US faces a significant trade deficit with China, a situation he attributed to former President Biden’s policies.”
Calling the relationship “unfair”, Trump said the US does not want to gain an advantage, but wants fairness.
He criticized the Biden administration for allowing the trade deficit to get “out of hand.”
“It’s just an unfair relationship. We have to make it fair… We want fairness. We just want a level playing field. We don’t want to be taken advantage of. We want a massive reduction with China. “Biden allowed this to get out of hand. It’s just an unfair relationship,” he said.
Trump pointed out that the US is running large deficits with many countries, particularly in Asia, and stressed the need to address these imbalances.
“The deficit is massive as it is with other countries, a lot of Asian countries. But we have deficits that are too big and we can’t do that. So, we’re not going to do that,” he said. He said.
Despite these trade issues, Trump expressed his personal admiration for President Xi, describing their relationship as generally positive, even during tense moments, such as the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan. .
“I like President Xi very much, I’ve always liked him. We’ve always had a very good relationship,” Trump said.
“It was very stressful with Covid coming out of Wuhan … but we always had a great relationship, we look forward to doing very well with China and doing very well with China. Hopefully, China will give us a special could potentially help prevent war, in particular, Russia-Ukraine.
In particular, the WEF Summit, running from 20 to 24 January in Davos, Switzerland, serves as a platform to discuss pressing global challenges, economic transformations and sustainability goals.
Earlier, days before his inauguration, Trump had a telephone conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping and discussed a range of issues including trade, fentanyl and TikTok.
Emphasizing the hope that the two global leaders would “solve many problems together,” the then-President-elect said they would do “everything possible” to make the world “more peaceful and secure.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)