Donald Trump urges Xi Jinping to meet Hong Kong protesters, clarifies earlier tweet interpreted as an offer to meet Chinese president
- Trump’s latest comments about Hong Kong suggest a meeting between Xi and protesters would yield an ‘enlightened ending’
- The president said another phone call with Xi will happen ‘very soon’ and more trade talks are expected in September
US President Donald Trump on Thursday urged his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to meet with anti-government protesters in Hong Kong, apparently clarifying comments he made a day earlier that were taken as a suggestion that Trump himself should meet with Xi over the matter.
Retweeting his own Twitter post from about 14 hours earlier, Trump said: “If President Xi would meet directly and personally with the protesters, there would be a happy and enlightened ending to the Hong Kong problem”.
He repeated the suggestion to White House reporters later on Thursday, adding that he has a phone call scheduled with Xi “very soon” and that he expected another round of trade talks next month.
In the earlier tweet, in which he praised Xi as “a great leader”, Trump said that he had “ZERO doubt that if President Xi wants to quickly and humanely solve the Hong Kong problem, he can do it. Personal meeting?”
Trump’s tweets on Wednesday regarding China and semi-autonomous Hong Kong, where unrest has led to violent clashes between protesters and police and forced the cancellation of thousands of flights at the city’s international airport, covered a range of topics, appeared to link trade talks with China to US Federal Reserve monetary policy and to the Hong Kong protests.
When discussing trade talks with reporters on Thursday, Trump said recent talks between US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He were “very productive” and that Beijing wanted “to follow through very quickly” on purchases of US agricultural products”, without offering more details.