Washington, : US President Donald Trump said on Monday that he will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping at G-20 summit in Japan next month.
“It makes sense to get along with Russia,” Trump said during a meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, The Washington Post reported.
Trump’s relationship with Putin continues to draw scrutiny in the US as Democratic lawmakers try to move forward with their own probes related to Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Late last year, Trump abruptly canceled a meeting with Putin that had been planned on the sidelines of the G-20 meeting in Argentina, after Russia refused to release Ukrainian ships and sailors it had seized in the Kerch Strait.
The announcement of the meetings comes as the US and China ratchet up a trade war that’s weighing on global financial markets.
Trump said he expects his discussion with Chinese President Xi to be “very fruitful”.
Earlier, China announced it would impose higher tariffs on a range of US goods including frozen vegetables and liquefied natural gas, a move that followed Washington’s decision last week to increase its own levies on $200 billion in Chinese imports.
Trump had warned Beijing not to retaliate. On Monday he said, “We’re dealing with them. We have a good relationship.”
Trump, who has embraced protectionism as part of an “America First” agenda, added that he had not yet decided whether to go ahead with tariffs on roughly another $325bn in goods from China.
For its part, China said on Monday it plans to set import tariffs ranging from five per cent to 25 per cent on 5,140 US products on a revised $60b target list. It said the tariffs will take effect on June 1.
“China’s adjustment on additional tariffs is a response to US unilateralism and protectionism,” its finance ministry said. “China hopes the US will get back to the right track of bilateral trade and economic consultations and meet with China halfway.”
The prospect that the US and China were spiralling into a no-holds-barred dispute that could derail the global economy has rattled investors and led to a sharp selloff on equities markets in the past week.
Global equities tumbled again on Monday, with major Wall Street stock indexes down more than two per cent.
China’s yuan currency fell to its lowest level since December and oil futures slumped.
UNI.
