Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s “friendship” with President Trump could be on the rocks over the ongoing trade war, the U.S. leader acknowledged Wednesday.
“Maybe he’s not [my friend] anymore, I’ll be honest with you,” Trump said during a press conference at the United Nations General Assembly. “I think we had a very good friendship.”
Trump has made an economic clash with China one of the central policies of his second year in office, with the two sides issuing volleys of tariffs in recent months as the president’s team presses China about an array of unfair trade practices. Trump has also accused China of interfering in the 2018 elections, even as he touts his efforts to convince Xi to help denuclearize North Korea.
“They do not want me or us to win because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade,” Trump said earlier Wednesday. “And we are winning on trade. We are winning at every level. We don’t want them to meddle or interfere in our upcoming election.”
White House officials cited China’s tariffs on the U.S. agriculture sector, which overlaps with Trump’s political base of support, to justify that accusation. But the president maintained that those tariffs wouldn’t work.
“It’s a complex game. A lot of people don’t know exactly what it is: They don’t know how to define ‘tariff,’ they don’t know if it’s really different than a tax, although it’s getting close,” Trump told reporters. “But they know that for the first time in many, many years they have a president that’s fighting for them, that’s not letting their jobs be taken to other countries.”
Trump puts a premium on his personal relationships with foreign leaders, hoping that “chemistry” can help solve even the most difficult geopolitical problems.
“You understand how I feel about chemistry,” he told Voice of America in June after his summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. “It’s very important. I mean, I know people where there is no chemistry no matter what you do, you just don’t have it. We had it right from the beginning, I talked about that and I think great things are going to happen for North Korea.”
Trump stressed that he doesn’t have personal animosity for Xi or the Chinese people. “They’re having big problems,” he said during the press briefing. “I don’t want them to have problems, but they’ve got to make a fair deal, just like Canada’s got to make a fair deal. I believe that he and I have a very good chemistry together.”
