In Press Conference, Trump and Liu He Agree U.S.-China Relations Impinge on ‘World Peace’
Oct. 12, 2019 (EIRNS)—Other important aspects of the Oct. 11 press conference in the Oval Office with President Donald Trump and China’s Vice Premier Liu He:
• President Trump said he and Xi Jinping will sign the final form of the agreement reached on Friday, hopefully at the APEC meeting in Santiago, Chile on Nov. 16-17.
• Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said that Huawei was not part of the agreement, but that it is a “separate process.”
• Trump said he “absolutely” welcomes Chinese business investments in the U.S. He hedged a bit:
“We do have to be—you know, security companies and certain companies—we have to be careful with and we have to pay very close attention. But we’re doing tremendous business with China and with Chinese businesses. It’s tailed off. We’ve tailed it off. We’ve purposefully tailed it off. But that’ll start building up very quickly again. We expect that to build up to a much bigger extent, I think, than even before.”
• On Hong Kong, President Trump did not back down from his repeated insistence that this is an issue to be dealt with by the Chinese:
“We discussed Hong Kong. And I think great progress has been made by China in Hong Kong. And I’ve been watching. And I actually told the Vice Premier [Liu He] it really has toned down a lot from the initial days of a number of months ago, when I saw a lot of people. And I see far fewer now. We were discussing it, and I think that’s going to take care of itself. I actually think this deal is a great deal for the people of Hong Kong, to see what happened. I think this is a very positive thing for Hong Kong. But ... it really has deescalated a lot from the beginning, and we were discussing that.”
• On the overall importance of the trade deal, he repeated his call for the Fed to lower rates, but he also made a strategic assessment:
“The China deal is much more important than the interest rates, because this has to do with more than trade; this has to do with world peace. This has to do with getting along. This has to do with the rest of the world. This isn’t just a deal on trade. This has to do with a lot of friction, a lot of bad things that are happening in the world.... I think that world peace—you know, there was a lot of friction between the United States and China. And now, it’s a lovefest. That’s a good thing. But that’s good for China and it’s good for us, but it’s good for the world. The Vice Premier said the same thing. And he said it better than anybody could have said it. He said, ‘This is a great thing for the world.’ He didn’t say ‘China’ or ‘us’; he said this is a great thing ‘for the world.’ And he’s absolutely right. Perhaps you’d like to comment on that.”
Vice Premier Liu responded: “Yes, I fully agree with you. It’s good for China. It’s good for U.S. But it’s also good for the whole world. Not only a treaty. It provides peace and prosperity and development for the whole world. I think it’s very important.”
Trump then concluded: “And, you know, talk was getting tough, rhetoric was getting tough. We have ships and they have ships, and we have planes and they have planes. And, you know, bad things could happen. Stupid things could happen. But this is a great—a great thing that’s taken place. We have a very good bond and relationship.”
