President Donald Trump told reporters he refused to reveal to Chinese President Xi Jinping whether he would defend Taiwan from China.
While aboard Air Force One en route to the United States from China, a reporter asked Trump if he would defend Taiwan if it came to it.
“I don’t want to say. I’m not going to say that. There’s only one person that knows that. You know who it is? Me. I’m the only person,” Trump said. “That question was asked to me today by President Xi. I said I don’t talk about those things.”
When asked about Xi’s comments on the risk of conflict over Taiwan with the United States, Trump said, “No, I don’t think so.”
“I think we’ll be fine… He doesn’t want to see a war, and you have two things: you have the Iranian situation. On that, I think we agree almost entirely, other than he’s a buyer, and we’re not. We don’t need it. And on Taiwan, he doesn’t want to see a movement for independence,” Trump said.
“He says, ‘Look, you know, we’ve had it for thousands of years, and then at a certain period of time it left, and we were going to get it back, add the Korean War; a lot of things happened… On Taiwan, he feels very strongly. I made no commitment either way,” he added.
Trump also noted that Xi asked him about arms sales to Taiwan.
“We discussed arm sales to Taiwan; the whole thing with the arm sales was in great detail, actually. And I’ll be making decisions. You know, I think the last thing we need right now is a war that’s 9,500 miles away,” Trump said.