WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump on June 29 dismissed the importance of actions linked to Beijing that are deemed to be aggressive, including recent arrests of two Chinese nationals accused of smuggling a dangerous pathogen into the US, saying “that’s the way the world works”.
Mr Trump told Fox News that Washington behaves similarly.
“You don’t think we do that to them? We do, we do a lot of things,” he said on the Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo show.
“That’s the way the world works. It’s a nasty world.”
Mr Trump was responding to a question about how he viewed Chinese intellectual property theft, hacking of the US telecommunications system and controversy around the Covid-19 pandemic.
He likewise dismissed concerns over a case in which two Chinese nationals were accused in June of smuggling in a toxic fungus.
Yunqing Jian, 33, and Zunyong Liu, 34, are charged with conspiracy, smuggling, false statements and visa fraud.
The US Justice Department said the pair conspired to smuggle into the US a fungus called Fusarium graminearum, which causes “head blight”, a disease of wheat, barley, maize and rice.
Mr Trump downplayed this, saying, “you don’t know where that came from, though. I mean, did that come from the country, or is that three wackos that happened to carry something?”
Referring to the ongoing US-China trade war, Mr Trump appeared to signal he was satisfied, saying: “We’re getting along well with China.”
He added: “I think getting along with China is a very good thing, but they are paying substantial tariffs.”
This past week, the White House signalled trade progress with China, with an official saying both sides have reached an understanding on issues, including expediting rare earth shipments to the US.
After talks in Geneva in May, Washington and Beijing agreed to temporarily lower steep tit-for-tat tariffs on each other’s products. AFP
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