US and Chinese presidents meet at APEC amid tensions over the tariff war.
The White House announced in recent days that US President Donald Trump will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in South Korea on October 30.
White House press secretary Caroline Levitt confirmed the meeting, despite doubts following the escalation of trade tensions between the two countries.
Referring to Trump’s trip to Malaysia, Japan, and South Korea, she added: The US president is scheduled to meet with the Chinese president on Thursday after speaking at the APEC CEO Summit.
According to Levitt, Trump will participate in a bilateral meeting with the Chinese president on Thursday morning (local time) and then return to Washington.
Trump has previously taken a tough stance on China’s alleged role in smuggling fentanyl into the United States via Venezuela.
He accused China of using Venezuela as a transit route for fentanyl to evade U.S. and Mexican port controls. Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said the first question he would ask the Chinese president would be about fentanyl.
Trump said, “I’m meeting with President Xi, the first question I’m going to ask him is about fentanyl. They make $100 million selling fentanyl to our country, but they lose $100 billion with a 20 percent tariff. So it’s not a good deal, that’s one of the things we’re going to talk about, they’re going to pay a big price for this, we’ll see what happens next week, I’m actually meeting with President Xi Jinping in South Korea.