“Selling American weapons to China.” Trump explains the truth about making this offer to Xi

- US President Donald Trump announced on Monday that he did not discuss the issue of selling US weapons to China during his recent meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, in contradiction to a statement made by US Ambassador to China David Perdue one day earlier. Perdue told Fox News that Trump "says we sell weapons to other parties around the world," adding that he "actually asked President Xi at some point if he wanted to buy some of them."

Asked about Perdue's comments on Monday, Trump appeared surprised, saying, "For China? I've never heard of that. I'll have to ask him about it. They might want to buy it because we make better equipment than they have, so that might be a good idea, but we haven't discussed that."

Commenting on Perdue's statements, he added: "Maybe he was talking about Taiwan. I think he was talking about Taiwan." Following Perdue's statements, the US State Department also denied that the United States was considering selling weapons to China, with officials telling reporters that "US law prohibits the sale of weapons to China, and there is no offer or plan to sell weapons to China." A US official also added: "The US government has no plans to sell weapons to China."