Trump Refuses To Demand China Participate in Arms Control Talks

July 31, 2020 (EIRNS)—On July 29, as President Donald Trump was leaving the White House, he had a short press availability. He was asked about bringing China into the arms negotiations with Russia. Chinese participation was not one of his demands.

Trump:

“We’ll talk about that later. We’re going to work this [negotiation with Russia] first and we’ll see. China right now is a much lesser nuclear power—you understand that—than Russia. Right now, we are the great nuclear power. We’ve upgraded our nuclear tremendously since. We have the most power. Russia is second and China is third. China is surging; they’ll be there at some point. And, yeah, we would want to talk to China eventually. Yes. Okay?”

Question: “Why not as part of a trilateral negotiation? Does China not want to be involved?”

Trump: “We thought that we would do it first. I don’t know if it’s going to work out. But we would do it first and then we go to China together. Okay? Which, I think, works out probably better.”