Trump offered Xi Jinping the chance to buy US weapons, ambassador reveals

US ambassador to China David Perdue disclosed a striking detail from last week's meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, telling Fox News on Sunday that Trump had asked the Chinese leader whether he would like to buy American weapons. According to Perdue, Trump noted that the US sells arms to many countries and put the question directly to Xi.

The remark came up during a discussion of US policy toward Taiwan, which has been left waiting for months for approval of a $14bn arms package, following a record-breaking multi-billion dollar deal finalized last December.

Questions about Trump's commitment to Taiwan's defense are not new. At a May meeting with Xi in Beijing, Trump said he was holding the Taiwan package in reserve, calling it a useful "negotiating chip" in dealings with China.

Washington has traditionally kept a deliberately ambiguous position on whether it would intervene militarily if Taiwan were invaded, though the decades-old Taiwan Relations Act obligates it to supply the island with sufficient defensive equipment. Beijing, which claims Taiwan as its own despite never having governed it and has not ruled out using force to seize it, has consistently voiced firm opposition to any US arms sales there. During last week's Washington summit, Xi reportedly pressed Trump to oppose "Taiwan independence," according to China's state news agency Xinhua.

Following Perdue's remarks, the White House told the New York Times there were no plans to sell weapons to China, and the State Department stressed that US law bars such sales and that no offer or plan exists.

Before the interview aired, Taiwan's deputy foreign minister, Chen Ming-chi, warned reporters in Taipei about the serious military threat from China, noting that despite its slowing economy, Beijing keeps expanding its military capabilities. Trump has not mentioned the arms sale since the summit, saying only on Saturday that Xi understands his position on Taiwan. Perdue himself told CNBC on Friday that there had been no change to Taiwan policy, including on arms sales.