In a series of tweets Saturday morning, President Donald Trump thanked Chinese President Xi Jinping for the “honor” of his two-day visit to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, and congratulated “our great military men and women” who were involved in the missile…
Trump noted that “only time will tell” whether the two countries’ trade relationship would improve.
The tweets came on the heels of what Trump initially projected would be a ” very difficult ” summit with Xi at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday and Friday, particularly around trade issues and North Korea’s nuclear program.
Asked if the two countries had reached any agreement on opening Chinese markets up to American manufacturers, a frequent campaign promise from Trump, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin — standing alongside to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross at a press briefing on Friday — said that China had acknowledged the United States’ concerns, but did not go into details.
“I think there was definitely an acknowledgement by them on the trade issue that we do need to get to a more balanced trade environment, ” he said. “We did begin those discussions today, but I would just emphasize there was a lot going on in two days. And although we had some specific conversations, as Secretary Ross mentioned, the plan is for us to develop a 100-day plan, and we would expect to see some very specific items on that. ”
The summit was was largely overshadowed by Trump’s Thursday night order of a missile strike against a Syrian airfield, following a suspected poison gas attack carried out by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces on Tuesday.
