Trump expects China deal but warns that Xi talks may not happen

WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump said on Oct 21 that he expected to seal a “good” trade deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a regional summit next week – even as he warned that the highly anticipated sit-down might yet be cancelled.

Mr Trump has repeatedly changed his mind on meeting Mr Xi at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in South Korea since first announcing the encounter.

“So now we’re going to have a fair deal, and I think we’re going to have a very successful meeting. Certainly, there are a lot of people that are waiting for it,” Mr Trump told a lunch event with Republican senators at the White House.

But he then added: “Maybe it won’t happen. Things can happen where, for instance, maybe somebody will say, ‘I don’t want to meet. It’s too nasty.’ But it’s really not nasty.”

Mr Trump first announced on Sept 19 that

he would meet Mr Xi in South Korea

– which would be their first encounter since his return to the White House – and travel to China early in 2026.

But on Oct 10, he said he would scrap the Xi talks and threatened China with massive tariffs after Beijing imposed export curbs on rare earth minerals, only to reverse course.

Mr Trump has apparently softened his stance again, though, saying as recently as Oct 20 that they would meet and that his trip to China “fairly early next year” was “sort of set”.

Mr Xi is not the only leader the 79-year-old President has blown hot and cold about recently.

Mr Trump said on Oct 16 that he would meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest within two weeks to discuss the war in Ukraine. But the White House said on Oct 21 that

there were now no plans

for a meeting “in the immediate future”. AFP