Donald Trump accuses China of seeking to meddle in US midterm congressional elections
‘China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election, coming up in November, against my administration,’ Trump told the UN Security Council
US President Donald Trump accused China of trying to influence the US midterm elections in favour of the opposition Democrats on Wednesday, continuing an assault on Beijing during United Nations meetings in New York.
“We found that China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election, coming up in November, against my administration,” Trump said in a speech to members of the UN Security Council.
Trump, who was chairing the Security Council meeting, tied his accusations to the trade war he started in July in an effort to force Beijing to change its trade and investment policies. His comments come a day after he singled out China in his address to the UN General Assembly for “victimising”, “cheating” and “plundering” US companies and other trading partners.
“They do not want me, or us, to win because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade, and we are winning on trade,” Trump told the Security Council. “We are winning at every level. We don’t want them to meddle or interfere in our upcoming election.”
He did not provide any evidence for the allegation of election interference. But in a tweet shortly after his UN remarks he criticised an advertising supplement placed by the state-owned China Daily in an Iowa newspaper on Sunday.
“China is actually placing propaganda ads in the Des Moines Register and other papers, made to look like news,” he said. “That’s because we are beating them on Trade, opening markets, and the farmers will make a fortune when this is over!”