U.S. President Donald Trump signaled he could accept Chinese automakers producing vehicles in the United States, about 10 days before Chinese President Xi Jinping visits the country. As expectations build that artificial intelligence will emerge as a key agenda item at the Washington summit, foreign media also reported that China has told the U.S. it could shelve the meeting over American arms sales to Taiwan.
Trump said in a Fox News interview on the 11th that he would be fine with China coming into the United States to build automobile plants, Reuters reported on the 13th. "The most important thing is that Americans get jobs," Trump said, noting that Japan also employs American workers by producing cars in the United States. He drew a line, however, at Chinese automakers setting up plants in Mexico and then exporting finished vehicles to the United States, saying that would be unacceptable.
The remarks are seen as reflecting the summit with Xi, now about 10 days away. But they immediately met strong pushback from U.S. automakers, which have repeatedly asked the administration to block Chinese carmakers from entering the American market. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation recently sent a letter to Congress saying unfair trade practices, subsidies and intellectual property violations in China's auto industry pose a serious threat to the U.S. auto industry.
Artificial intelligence, an area of intense competition between the two countries, is also likely to surface as a major agenda item at the summit, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reported. Multiple sources told the SCMP that officials are considering including AI-related discussions alongside existing economic topics such as trade at high-level preparatory talks to be held days before the summit. At a summit in Beijing in May this year, Trump and Xi agreed to pursue a government-to-government dialogue channel on AI. With the summit date approaching, however, it is becoming increasingly difficult to schedule separate high-level talks devoted to AI, according to the report.
Meanwhile, Japan's Kyodo News reported that China has told the United States it could shelve the summit if Washington approves new arms sales to Taiwan. That raises the prospect that Taiwan — long described by Beijing as a red line — could again become the biggest point of contention between the two countries.
