U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday he thinks his administration will have a “very good relationship” with China and all he wants regarding trade issues with the Asian power is “fairness.”
Trump also said in virtual remarks to business executives attending this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that he wants to hold nuclear disarmament talks with China along with Russia.
When asked how he views the relationship between Washington and Beijing in the next four years under his leadership, Trump said, “We just want a level playing field,” pointing to the massive trade deficits the United States has had with China. “We have to make it just fair. We don’t have to make it phenomenal.”
The president, who returned to power Monday to begin a nonconsecutive second term, noted without naming any that there are many other Asian countries with which the United States has trade imbalances, adding, “We are not going to keep doing that.”
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on Jan. 23, 2025. (Getty/Kyodo)
In his speech to the annual forum streamed live to a global audience, Trump, who is well-known for his transactional approach, said his message to every business in the world was simple.
In accessing the U.S. market, businesses could either make products in the United States as the government prepares to lower taxes for companies, or else face tariffs if they choose not to, he said.
During the question-and-answer period, Trump said he likes Chinese President Xi Jinping “very much,” although he admitted their relations had been strained by the outbreak of the novel coronavirus during his first term.
“We always had a great relationship, I would say, and we look forward to doing very well with China and getting along with China,” he said.
While his administration is planning to impose an additional 10 percent tariff on products from China, possibly from Feb. 1, Trump said he wants the world’s second-largest economy to help the United States bring an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“Hopefully, we could work together and get that stopped” given that China has a great deal of influence over the fate of the war, he said, revealing he raised the issue during his phone conversation with Xi on Friday, when the Chinese leader called.
Trump then suddenly added that he wants to work toward “denuclearization” with China and Russia, and he believes such efforts are “very possible.”
Referring to conversations that took place during his first presidency, Trump said he had discussed reducing nuclear arsenals with Russian President Vladimir Putin and China would have joined them.
“China has a much smaller, right now, nuclear armament than us…but they’re going to be catching it at some point over the next four or five years,” he said.
While China has been rapidly expanding its nuclear capabilities, the United States and Russia together possess about 90 percent of all nuclear weapons in the world.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, as of January last year, Russia was estimated to have 5,580 nuclear weapons and the United States had 5,044, followed by China’s 500.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began nearly three years ago, the bilateral disarmament architecture between Washington and Moscow has eroded considerably. In February 2023, Russia announced its suspension of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, their last remaining nuclear arms control pact.
Soon after his second term began, Trump signed numerous executive orders aimed at advancing his “America First” agenda and rolling back his predecessor Joe Biden’s key policies, such as those meant to boost the transition to clean energy.
During the Davos speech, he denigrated the Biden era and reiterated that he will begin “the largest deregulation campaign” in U.S. history.
Among many other topics, he urged Saudi Arabia and other members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to bring down global oil prices and demanded that each NATO ally raise its defense spending to 5 percent of its gross domestic product.
Trump, who has voiced hope to meet “soon” with Putin, insisted that the war in Ukraine could end earlier if the cost of oil were lower.
“With oil prices going down, I’ll demand that interest rates drop immediately. And, likewise, they should be dropping all over the world,” he added.
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