President Donald Trump lämnade Washington på tisdagseftermiddagen för att resa till Kina, där han kommer att träffa den kinesiske ledaren Xi Jinping för ett toppmöte.
Trumps resa den 13–15 maj är det första besöket av en amerikansk president i Kina sedan hans statsbesök 2017 under hans första mandatperiod.
Handel förväntas dominera diskussionerna mellan de två ledarna, även flera känsliga frågor, däribland kriget i Iran, mänskliga rättigheter och Taiwan, kommer också sannolikt att stå i centrum.
I ett samtal med reportrar inför avresan uttryckte Trump optimism inför mötet med Xi.
”Vi kommer att ha ett fantastiskt möte”, sade han.
Han sade att han och Xi kommer att ha ”ett långt samtal” om kriget i Iran.
Timmar före avresan uttryckte Trump optimism inför toppmötet i Peking i en intervju med Sid Rosenberg på WABC Radio.
”Jag tror att det kommer att gå bra”, sa Trump till programledaren för ”Sid & Friends in the Morning”.
”Kina är starkt, men vi är starkare än Kina. Vi är starkare än något annat land militärt.”
President Trump on his way to Beijing for a major summit with Chinese regime leader Xi Jinping.
Trade Taiwan and the conflict in Iran are all expected to be on the agenda. NTD's Washington correspondent Jack Bradley has the details.
President Trump departing Washington for Beijing for a two-day summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
He's set to pursue new trade agreements with China to bring down the U.S. trade deficit at over 200 billion dollars.
China is expected to purchase U.S. goods like soybeans, beef and other farm products and the U.S.
may also sell potentially hundreds of Boeing commercial aircraft to China along with increased purchases of U.S.
oil and liquid natural gas.
President Trump will be accompanied by 16 tech and business CEOs
including Elon Musk, Apple's Tim Cook and BlackRock's Larry Fink among others.
Trump is also set to raise other sensitive issues like the conflict in Iran.
Now China has a lot of incentive to push Iran toward a peace deal.
China buys up to 90% of Iran's oil and that supply has been cut off now for about a month after the U.S.
imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports and the Strait of Hormuz which accounts for almost half of China's oil imports is
essentially closed down for every country due to the threat of Iranian attacks on commercial ships.
But even so, Trump says that he won't need Xi's help to push Iran toward a peace deal.
Taiwan will also come up in the summit. Xi Jinping has stated his intention to take over Taiwan by force if necessary.
Taiwan is the world's largest chip producer, which is necessary to make nearly all electronics.
But they're also a self-governing democracy.
The Trump administration approved a record 11 billion dollar weapon sale to Taiwan back in December.
The Taiwanese president releasing this message ahead of Trump's trip.
I would like to thank the United States for helping us strengthen our defense capabilities.
Democracy is one of the values that links Taiwan to the world.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to be part of the U.S.
delegation to China. China sanctioned Rubio back in 2020 for introducing bills as a senator targeting the Chinese Communist Party's
crackdown on political dissidents in Hong Kong and slavery camps for Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
And he's also introduced legislation to stop China's forced organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners.
Now China will be waiving those sanctions for his visit.
President Trump also said that he'll bring up the cases of imprisoned Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai and Chinese pastor Ezra Jin.
Xi Jinping is expected to visit Washington later this year. For NTD News Washington, I'm Jack Bradley.
