US President Donald Trump on Wednesday appeared to link a trade deal with Beijing to the “humane” resolution of a standoff with Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters, while seeming to suggest a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.
“Millions of jobs are being lost in China to other non-Tariffed countries. Thousands of companies are leaving. Of course China wants to make a deal. Let them work humanely with Hong Kong first!” Trump wrote on Twitter.
Washington and Beijing have imposed tariffs on $360 billion in two-way trade, but Trump has delayed tariffs on electronic goods from China, giving investors hope for a detente in the trade conflict.
The US president later returned to the subject of Hong Kong, where protesters have staged 10 weeks of relentless protests to demand greater freedoms, including rallies that paralyzed the semi-autonomous city’s airport, one of the world’s busiest travel hubs.
“I have ZERO doubt that if President Xi wants to quickly and humanely solve the Hong Kong problem, he can do it,” Trump tweeted.
“Personal meeting?” he added, in what appeared to be an offer to Xi to help resolve the Hong Kong crisis.
The United States has said it is “deeply concerned” over Chinese security force movements on the border with Hong Kong and urged Beijing to honor the territory’s autonomy.
Under the terms of Hong Kong’s return to China from British colonial rule, the city is meant to have far greater liberties than those allowed on the mainland. Protests have rocked the city for more than two months after demonstrations against a now-suspended extradition bill expanded to include calls for broader democratic reforms.
Trump has recently taken fire for his hands-off approach to the protests so far, with critics on both sides of the political spectrum accused him of abandoning longstanding US policy to support democratic movements and giving Beijing a green light to intervene in one of the world’s most important financial and trade centers, a semi-autonomous Chinese region.
As protesters battled police in Hong Kong’s airport Tuesday, partially shutting down air traffic, Trump appeared ambivalent, telling journalists the situation was “very tricky.”
“I hope it works out for everybody including China. I hope it works out peacefully, nobody gets hurt, nobody gets killed,” he said.
But the US leader had no words in support of the protesters, and after months of protests, his administration has mainly called for both sides to avoid violence, while denying Beijing’s accusations of US interference.
“Trump favors both sides in Hong Kong protests. Hardly a profile in courage,” said Nicholas Burns, a former senior US diplomat now at the Harvard University Kennedy School. “The only side the US should be on is democratic rights for the people of Hong Kong.”
After Trump’s recent remark that China doesn’t “need advice” in dealing with the protests, Thomas Wright, a foreign policy expert at the Brookings Institution, accused him of essentially giving Xi “a green light” to intervene in the territory.
In a tweet Wright called it the “Worst foreign policy decision of his presidency.”
