WASHINGTON — Relations between the world’s two superpowers, the United States and China, can shift without warning, and US President Donald Trump’s latest remarks have surprised many. Despite a strict legal prohibition on arms exports to China, Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping directly, in his presence, whether China would buy weapons from the United States. The question has prompted debate over the strategy behind it.
The two leaders have met twice this year, first in Beijing in May and again when Xi recently made a three-day visit to Washington. With the Taiwan dispute, economic sanctions and the trade war still unresolved, Trump put the weapons offer on the table, drawing on his deal-making instincts. Arms sales to China are barred by law: in 1990, the US Congress imposed a complete ban on exports of defense products to the country. By setting aside that decades-old prohibition to say the US sells weapons to everyone around the world and ask whether China would buy, Trump appears to be playing a larger mind game.
Beijing regards Taiwan as an integral part of its territory, yet Washington supplies Taipei with weapons worth tens of billions of dollars for its self-defense. Last December, the Trump administration approved an $11 billion defense package for Taiwan, and another $14 billion arms deal remains pending. By arming Taiwan and pressuring China on one hand, while offering to sell weapons to China itself on the other, Trump appears intent on unsettling Xi and securing deals favorable to the United States.
Even if the offer stands, China has little need to buy conventional weapons from the US. Its industrial capacity for building naval vessels is roughly 230 times that of the United States, and its output of small drones is about 100 times greater. China has already achieved self-sufficiency in most defense sectors. If it were to buy anything, it would be advanced technologies such as America’s highly classified AI technology or F-35 stealth fighter jets, but the United States would under no circumstances hand over such sensitive technology to its principal rival.
Experts also believe the economic headwinds and slowdown facing the United States are a strong factor behind Trump’s remarks. At a time of intense global economic pressure, Trump appears to have been willing to entertain such a deal with China in the hope of earning billions of dollars in revenue from arms exports.