Donald Trump’s anniversary wish for China: congratulations on your milestone, but we will beat you in trade war
- US president’s tweet comes as Beijing’s negotiators prepare to travel to Washington for high-level talks aimed at ending the 15-month-old tariff battle
- Quoting of China expert omits mention of Washington’s strategy hitting Beijing in the financial investment sphere
US President Donald Trump wished China a “happy birthday” on Monday, while vowing at the same time to prevail in the trade war and berating Beijing for not accepting an earlier drafted deal.
“We are winning, and we will win,” Trump wrote in a Twitter post, one day ahead of celebrations in China marking the 70th anniversary of the country’s founding.
“They should not have broken the deal we had with them,” Trump tweeted. “Happy Birthday China!”
The US leader’s jibe appeared to have been prompted by a morning appearance on the Fox Business Network by author and China expert Jonathan Ward, who said the US was waking up to Beijing’s plans to “surpass [the US] as the dominant, economic and military superpower in the 21st century”.
Trump roughly quoted Ward in his Monday tweet when the author said Washington’s response to China’s growing power was “taking shape in trade, it’s taking shape in military competition and it’s going to start potentially taking place in financial markets”.