Trump Asked Xi: “Would You Buy American Weapons?
Trump Asked Xi Whether China Would Buy American Weapons, Ambassador Says
President Donald Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping whether Beijing would be interested in buying American weapons, according to U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue, an offhand-seeming offer that, if ever consummated, would upend decades of U.S. policy and law.
The Revelation
Perdue disclosed the exchange during an interview on "Fox News Sunday," while defending Trump's record on Taiwan and discussing continued American arms sales to the island.
"President Trump continues to say, 'Hey, we sell arms to other people around the world,'" Perdue told host Shannon Bream. "He actually asked President Xi, would he like to buy some, at one point."
The ambassador did not say when the question was raised, what weapons were discussed, or how Xi responded. The two leaders have met twice this year, in Beijing in May and during Xi's three-day state visit to Washington last week. Perdue pushed back on questions about Taiwan, insisting Trump "is as strong on Taiwan as I've ever seen anybody" and portraying the remark as characteristic of the president's deal-making style rather than evidence a formal sale was contemplated.
AP reported that Trump has justified the pending Taiwan arms package to Xi by downplaying it as one of many sales Washington makes worldwide. The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the remark.
The Legal and Strategic Obstacles
Any actual sale would face major hurdles. Congress restricted the export of U.S. Munitions List defense articles to mainland China in 1990, and the restrictions — subject to limited exceptions and presidential national-interest determinations, have effectively maintained a U.S. arms embargo on Beijing for more than three decades.
Meanwhile, Washington remains Taiwan's principal foreign weapons supplier, officially under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which commits the U.S. to making defense articles available in quantities necessary for the island's "sufficient self-defense capability." Beijing considers Taiwan part of China and demands an end to the sales, arguing they violate its sovereignty; ahead of Xi's visit, China's Defense Ministry urged the U.S. to exercise "extreme caution" on the issue.
The Trump administration approved an $11 billion Taiwan package last December, the largest announced to date. A further package worth roughly $14 billion has sat on hold for months, with Trump calling it a "very good negotiating chip." The White House's post-summit materials announced no decision on the stalled package.
What Could China Even Buy?
Analysts note the offer faces a practical problem as well as a legal one: it is unclear what Washington could sell that China does not already produce. China is self-sufficient across most major conventional weapons categories, and widely cited rankings placing it behind the U.S. rest on dollar-denominated arms revenues rather than physical output.
In shipbuilding, where output can be compared directly, China's industrial capacity is estimated at roughly 230 times that of the United States; congressional testimony has put its small-drone output at more than 100 times the U.S. level. That leaves advanced technologies and know-how, areas where Washington retains an edge, as the only plausible products, and precisely the capabilities the U.S. treats as most sensitive and is least likely to share with its principal strategic rival.