Donald Trump says ‘bad’ developments in Hong Kong could affect trade negotiations
- US leader issues warning days ahead of high-level trade talks in Washington
- Calls on Beijing to deal with the protests in a ‘peaceful’ and ‘humane’ manner
US President Donald Trump said on Monday that trade talks with China could be affected should anything “bad” happen in the way authorities are handling anti-government protests in Hong Kong.
Addressing reporters at the White House, Trump offered no elaboration on what would constitute something “bad”, but he called on Beijing to deal with the protests in a “peaceful” and “humane” manner.
“If anything happened bad, I think that would be a very bad thing for the [trade] negotiation[s],” said Trump. “I think politically it would be very tough, maybe for us and maybe for some others and maybe for [Chinese President Xi Jinping]”.
The US leader also denied media reports that he had promised to Xi during a telephone call earlier this year that he would remain silent on the protests in Hong Kong while trade negotiations were ongoing.
CNN reported last week that records of the June call were placed in a highly-classified filing system, limiting the number of White House officials able to access them.