President Trump defended his negotiating approach with China and disputed that it caused uncertainty for the global economy, saying that the style had worked for him in the past and was working for the United States now.
Trump was responding to a reporter’s question Monday at the G-7 summit in Biarritz, France, about why China would want a deal with the U.S. when, just the day before, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had said China was a U.S. “enemy” on trade. The reporter asked if this was a deliberate negotiating strategy on the administration’s part. Trump indicated it was.
“It’s the way I negotiate. It has done very well for me over the years,” Trump said. “It’s doing even better for the country.”
The president continued, “Look, here’s the deal. I have people say, ‘Make a deal! Make a deal!’ They don’t have the guts and they don’t have the wisdom to know that you can’t continue to go on where a country is taking out $500 billion — not million, $500 billion with a ‘B’ — out every single year. You just can’t do that. Somebody had to do this.”
Trump also said, “I don’t consider it instability” for the global economy.
Other international leaders disagree with the U.S. president. Earlier in the morning, French President Emanuel Macron said that Trump’s negotiating style “obviously, as we clearly see, create[s] uncertainty, which disturbs markets and investors.”
