Former President Donald Trump said Monday afternoon that his “first call” if re-elected to the Oval Office will be to Chinese President Xi Jinping to enforce a trade deal beginning at the end of his term as the 45th president.
“On my first call, I'm going to call President Xi. I'm going to say, 'You have to honor the agreement that you made. We made a deal. You will buy $50 billion worth of American agricultural products.' And I guarantee you that he will buy it. 100% sure that he will buy it,” Trump said Monday during a campaign rally in Smithton, Pennsylvania.
Trump reached a trade deal with China in 2020 that included a commitment from Beijing to stop intellectual property theft, refrain from currency manipulation, cooperate on financial services and buy an additional $200 billion worth of American products over two years, including up to $50 billion from U.S. agriculture.
In exchange, the United States agreed to reduce tariffs on some products made in China but maintain the levies the White House has imposed on $375 billion worth of goods.
US AND CHINA SIGN A HISTORIC PHASE ONE TRADE AGREEMENT
Republican presidential candidate former U.S. President Donald Trump looks on during a campaign stop to address Pennsylvanians who are concerned about Communist China's threat to American agriculture at the Smith Family Farm September 23, 2024 in Smithton, Pennsylvania. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
The deal was dubbed a “phase one” trade agreement and came amid an 18-month trade war between the United States and China.
“Biden and Harris are never going to enforce anything… That group is a disaster. It's a disaster for our country in many ways, but certainly farmers are one of them,” Trump said of the current administration and the deal.
Tractor with combine in a farm field and a rock chimney, Scotts Bluff National Monument; Scottsbluff, Nebraska, United States of America. (Hawk Buckman/Design Pics Editorial/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
The 45th president joined a panel of farmers on Monday afternoon as part of an event by the Protect America Initiative, which is a group led by Trump’s acting director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell, and former New York Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin, that works to prevent China from infiltrating America’s “farmlands, food supply, education system, energy production, manufacturing chains, and our national security.”
WHY DOES PHASE ONE OF THE TRADE AGREEMENT WITH CHINA NOT REQUIRE CONGRESSIVE APPROVAL, UNLIKE THE USMCA?
President Joe Biden, left, shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, in Woodside, U.S., Nov. 15, 2023. (Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP, Pool, File)
Trump added that in addition to asking China to respect its 2020 trade deal, he would tell Xi to apply the death penalty to fentanyl traffickers who send the lethal drug into the United States across the border with Mexico.
STOCK MARKETS CELEBRATE PHASE ONE TRADE AGREEMENT WITH RECORD HIGHS
“The second thing I'm going to do is say that the death penalty should be applied to the fentanyl traffickers who are sending it. In China, they have the death penalty. They don't have a drug problem because they have the death penalty,” Trump said.
Republican presidential candidate former U.S. President Donald Trump (L) speaks during a campaign stop to address Pennsylvanians who are concerned about Communist China's threat to American agriculture at the Smith Family Farm on September 23, 2024 in Smithton, Pennsylvania. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
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“But I will say, a second thing, and this affects you too, it affects everybody,” Trump told the panel of farmers. “… We're losing hundreds of thousands of people a year. They're coming over the southern border. Now, the weakest border in history. It was the best border we had when I was there. We built hundreds of miles of wall and everything else, and it was the best border. Now it's the weakest. I had a handshake agreement with him, it was going to happen very quickly, and then this side did nothing about it, he said. And he suggested to me, 'Anybody who sends fentanyl into the United States, it's the death penalty. They get the maximum penalty.'”
“I would have done it. But then we had an election that didn't go so well,” Trump added.
Republican presidential candidate former U.S. President Donald Trump (C) looks on during a campaign stop to address Pennsylvanians who are concerned about Communist China's threat to American agriculture at the Smith Family Farm on September 23, 2024 in Smithton, Pennsylvania. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Trump was joined by Grenell, Zeldin, Republican Senate candidate for Pennsylvania Dave McCormick and other political supporters for the Pennsylvania event.
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