President Trump said Thursday that former Vice President Joe Biden is “very naive” about China after the former vice president said the world’s most populous country is “not competition for us.”
“If Biden actually said that, that is a very dumb statement,” Trump said during an interview with Fox News.
“Everyone is competition. I view everyone as competition,” Trump said.
Biden, who entered the 2020 Democratic presidential contest as front-runner last week, attracted broad criticism Thursday for his remarks on China.
“China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man,” Biden was recorded saying during a campaign event.
Trump, who made trade policy with China a central issue in his 2016 campaign, dug into the remark and the performance of the Obama administration.
“China during the Obama years in particular, just took advantage of our country so badly. A very, very big competition, China. And I’ve stopped it. And I am stopping it,” Trump said. “During the course of the last two and a half years, we’ve gone up $17 trillion in value. China has gone down to $17 trillion. China, as you know, has taken a very, very big hit because of the tariffs, and everything else I’ve imposed.”
Trump expressed optimism on a possible trade deal being negotiated with China, saying, “right now we lose $500 billion” in annual trade deficit. “After I sign the deal, it won’t be anything like that.
“We’ll see whether or not we have a deal. We have a very good chance we’ll have a great deal,” Trump said.
