Trump says he did not discuss the possibility of the US selling weapons to China, contradicting his ambassador

By Donald Judd, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump said Monday that he did not discuss the US selling weapons to China during his recent meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, contradicting an assertion made by the US ambassador to China a day earlier.

US Ambassador to China David Perdue had told Fox News Sunday that Trump “continues to say: hey, we sell arms to other people around the world,” adding that the president “actually asked President Xi, would he like to buy some, at one point.”

Pressed on Perdue’s comments Monday, Trump seemed surprised.

“To China? You mean to Taiwan? I’ve never heard of that one. I’m going to have to ask him,” Trump said. “Now, they’d probably like to buy it because we do make better equipment than that, so maybe it’s a good idea. But we didn’t discuss that.”

He added about Perdue’s comments: “He may have been talking about Taiwan. I think he was talking about Taiwan.”

Following the ambassador’s remarks Sunday, the State Department also disputed that the US was contemplating selling arms to China, telling reporters that, “U.S. law prohibits arms sales to China and there is no offer or plan to sell arms to China.” And a US official added: “The U.S. government has no plans to sell weapons to China.”

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CNN’s Logan Schiciano contributed to this report.