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The United States government denied to EFE this Monday that Washington has any intention of selling weapons to Beijing, which contradicts what was said by the United States ambassador to China, David Perdue, who claimed in an interview that President Donald Trump offered military shipments to his counterpart, Xi Jinping.
"The United States government has no plans to sell weapons to China," a US official who requested anonymity explained to EFE.
The statements seem to cast doubt on what was said on Sunday by Perdue in an interview with the Fox News network.
"Trump keeps saying 'we sell weapons to other countries in the world' (...) in fact, at one point he asked Xi if he would like to buy some," the diplomat asserted.
Trump himself said he knew nothing about the statements when asked about it this same Monday by media in the Oval Office.
"I haven't heard about that," he said before being asked directly about plans to sell armaments to the Asian country.
"Are we going to sell them (weapons)? No. They would probably be interested in buying because we make better equipment, so maybe it's a good idea," Trump responded, implying that he might like to explore the possibility of transferring military material to Beijing.
Perdue's statements and Trump's ambiguous response draw attention because, technically, US legislation prevents the transfer of armaments to Beijing.
The main restriction is that Congress prohibited, after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, the granting of export licenses to the People's Republic of China for items included on the United States Munitions List, a catalog regulated by the Department of State.
The assertions of the US ambassador to China also draw attention at a time when the Trump administration is withholding arms shipments destined for Taiwan, which Beijing considers a rebel province it does not rule out taking by force, and also because the Asian giant maintains significant trade links with Russia and Iran that Washington is trying to undermine.
[Publicidad]