US President Donald Trump insisted Thursday he was "very prepared" for a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping next week at the G20 Leaders Summit in Buenos Aires, and suggested a deal could be reached to end the trade war.
The president will meet Xi on the sidelines of the summit, which is taking place from November 30 to December 1 in Buenos Aires.
"I have been preparing for it all my life," he told journalists at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, where he gave a lengthy press conference after a Thanksgiving day telephone address to US troops deployed overseas. "I know every ingredient, every stat. I know it better than everybody knows it. My gut is always right."
Beijing and Washington have been locked in a trade war since this summer, with the US imposing punitive tariffs on Chinese goods worth US$250 billion per year. In retaliation, China imposed tariffs on US$110 billion of US goods.
Washington has threatened to toughen measures even further if the issue is not resolved before January.
"China wants to make a deal. If we can make a deal, we will," Trump said.
He also hailed his "great relationship" with Xi.
"I like him a lot. I think he likes me. Probably likes me less now than he did before we did what we're doing," he quipped.
- AFP
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