Trump takes aim at China over North Korea
Ahead of G20 summit where he will meet Chinese leader, US president tweets angrily about increased trade with enemy state
WASHINGTON, United States — US President Donald Trump lashed out at China Wednesday, pointing to a surge in its trade with North Korea as evidence that US reliance on Beijing to rein in Pyongyang was misplaced.
“Trade between China and North Korea grew almost 40% in the first quarter. So much for China working with us – but we had to give it a try!” Trump said in an early morning tweet.
The tweet came a day after North Korea conducted an apparently successful test launch of an inter-continental ballistic missile capable of striking the United States.
Trump posted the tweet as he was about to depart on his second overseas trip as US president, a trip that will include a high-profile summit meeting of world leaders in Germany held amid rising international tension and a meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping at a G20 summit in Germany.
Trump is due to arrive late Wednesday in Warsaw, where he is expected to lay out his vision for America’s relationship with Europe in a major speech on Thursday.
He will also have his first meeting with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, a politically fraught encounter that comes amid a US probe into Moscow’s alleged meddling in the 2016 election that brought Trump to office.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is skipping the Warsaw leg of the trip, traveling directly to Hamburg for the G20 conference and then on to Kiev and Istanbul for meetings, the State Department said.
Trade tensions also will be on the agenda in Hamburg, which Trump alluded to in another tweet before he left for Europe.
“The United States made some of the worst Trade Deals in world history. Why should we continue these deals with countries that do not help us?” he wrote.