Trump denies offering arms to China and easing sanctions on Iran

US President Donald Trump has denied an alleged offer to Chinese President Xi Jinping to sell weapons to China. In doing so, he contradicted the words of the US ambassador to China. "I've never heard of that before," said Trump in the White House in response to a question from a journalist. "We haven't discussed that." He would have to ask Ambassador David Perdue about it.

Perdue had previously spoken of such an offer from Trump to Xi in a television interview. Trump repeatedly says that the USA sells weapons to people all over the world, said the diplomat on the US broadcaster Fox News on Sunday (local time). "At one point he actually asked President Xi if he wanted to buy some."

The ambassador's statements caused a stir: such an arms sale would be a break with the decades-long US practice of not arming its rival (more on that here).

Beijing reacted cautiously to Perdue's statements. China is strengthening its defense capability based on its needs, said Foreign Office spokesman Guo Jiakun in Beijing. The People's Republic is committed to maintaining world peace and stability. China's Foreign Office did not go into details - Perdue also did not provide any information about when exactly Trump made the offer and how Xi responded to it.

A sale of weapons to China is likely to cause uncertainty, especially among US partners. Washington is providing military support to a number of states in East Asia that are under pressure from China. Independently governed Taiwan, which Beijing counts as part of the territory of the People's Republic of China and wants to bind it to itself - if necessary with military action, is particularly under pressure. Beijing has long been annoyed by Washington's regular arms deliveries to Taiwan.

On Monday, Trump not only denied the report about his alleged arms offer to Xi. He also rejected an article that said he had promised possible easing of sanctions against Iran in return for concessions on Iran's nuclear program. "That is not true. I didn't offer them ANYTHING!" he wrote on his Truth Social platform, referring to a corresponding article from the news portal Axios. He called on the media to withdraw the “false report”.