Trump leaves reporter speechless after hinting to very controversial act against China
President Donald Trump has confessed to a reporter that the US carry out controversial acts against China, leaving her speechless.
The 79-year-old sat down with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Friday (January 27) to discuss some of the major talking points in the world of politics, including ‘Operation Midnight Hammer’, his relationship with Elon Musk and tensions with China.
The exclusive interview was broadcast on Sunday Morning Futures on Fox News, and during it the veteran reporter asked the Republican whether America can trust President Xi Jinping and his communist government.
It was in reference to the trade war that the two nations are currently engaged in, with a tariff ping-pong having ensued which saw China hit US goods with a 125 percent levy, Trump hit back with a 145 percent tax on Chinese imports.
Trump left the reporter speechless (Andrew Harnik / Staff / Getty)
The back and forth went on for a month before the two nations reached an agreement where rates subsequently fell to a tariff of just 10 percent for American goods coming into China and a 30 percent tariff on Chinese imports into the US, for 90 days.
Bartiromo questioned whether the president had confidence that China would stick to an agreement, citing how there have been numerous reports that China ‘hacked into our telecom system’, as well as accusing the East Asian country of ‘stealing intellectual property’ from the US and supplying fentanyl to the country – as Trump alleges in an executive order.
“How do you negotiate with obviously a bad actor and trust them on economics?” she asked.
“You don’t think we do that to them? We do. We do a lot of things,” the POTUS replied, leaving Bartiromo in silence.
She then asked Trump if that really is how business is conducted on a global level, to which he responded: “That’s the way the world works. It’s a nasty world.”
President Donald Trump has reached a trade agreement with President Xi Jinping, with the pair pictured back in 2019 (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
A day prior to when the interview was conducted, the Trump administration announced that it had just signed a trade deal with China.
“We just signed with China the other day,” Trump told Bloomberg TV late on Thursday, while Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick added that it was ‘signed and sealed’ two days earlier.
It is primarily based around the countries’ need for materials the other possesses.
China holds almost the entire world’s supply of samarium – a rare earth material that is largely used in the military for fighter jets, missiles and other equipment.
Back in April, China halted exports on samarium, as well as other rare minerals, with exporters only able to send it out with a license from the Ministry of Commerce.
The deal means the US can purchase rare earth minerals from China (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
In return for these minerals, China will hope the POTUS will ease restrictions which sees American computer chip companies limited in what they can sell to businesses in China.
The aim of these restrictions, which former president Joe Biden introduced before the Trump administration tightened earlier this year, is to slow the communist country in its ambitions to develop artificial intelligence both for military and commercial purposes.
“Part of the agreement was tariffs coming down and rare earth magnets starting to flow back to the US,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent explained to Fox News on Friday.
“They formed the core of a lot of our industrial base. They were not flowing as fast as previously agreed.”
