Trump to Carter: ‘China Is Getting Ahead of Us’; Carter Replies: China Doesn’t Go to War as We Do

April 15, 2019 (EIRNS)—President Donald Trump and former President Jimmy Carter had a phone conversation over the weekend, discussing relations with China.

According to a tweet by Emma Hurt from NPR’s Atlanta affiliate, Carter commented on his discussion with Trump while speaking at Sunday School at his church in Plains, Georgia, where he said that during their telephone conversation, the U.S. President was rightly concerned that “China is getting ahead of us.”

“Carter said that’s true. He suggested maybe it’s because China hasn’t been spending money on war like the U.S. They haven’t been at war since we normalised diplomatic relations. He pointed out that of 242 years of existence, the United States has been at peace for only 16 of them,”

Hurt tweeted.

The U.S., Carter said, “is the most warlike nation in the history of the world,” because it seeks to impose its values on the world. China, on the other hand, is investing its resources in such projects as high-speed rail. “How many miles of high-speed rail do we have in this country,” he asked, according to NPR. He estimated that the U.S. has wasted about $3 trillion in U.S. military spending, while “China has not wasted a single penny on war, and that’s why they’re ahead of us, in almost every single way.

“And I think the difference is if you take $3 trillion and put it in American infrastructure, you’d probably have $2 trillion left over. We’d have high-speed railroad. We’d have bridges that aren’t collapsing. We’d have roads that are maintained properly. Our education system would be as good as that of, say, South Korea or Hong Kong.”

The former President said he thought President Trump had called him in response to a letter Carter had written him on relations between the U.S. and China, the Washington Examiner reported. According to The Hill, citing the White House, Trump said he had received a “beautiful letter” from Carter, about the administration’s ongoing trade negotiations with China. The White House said they discussed China and “numerous other topics.”