US President Donald Trump, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, suggested that China could play a key role in ending the nearly three-year Russia-Ukraine war. He highlighted his positive relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping while emphasizing the need to bring the conflict to a close.
Asserting that the war “really needs to be stopped,” Trump said, “I like President Xi very much, I have always liked him. We have always had a good relationship. It was very strained with Covid coming out of Wuhan… We always had a great relationship and we look forward to getting along with China.”
He added, “Hopefully, China can help us stop the war in Russia-Ukraine. They have a great deal of power over that situation, and we’ll work with them. I mentioned that during the phone conversation with President Xi and hopefully we can work together and get that stopped.”
Despite previously hinting at imposing 60% tariffs on China if re-elected, Trump at Davos reiterated the need for “fairness” and a “level-playing field” in trade, while criticizing former President Joe Biden for creating massive trade deficits with China. “We don’t have to make it phenomenal, we just have to make it fair,” he said.
Trump also hinted at potential de-nuclearization talks involving Russian President Vladimir Putin and Xi, which he described as an “unbelievable thing for the planet.”
Trump Wants To Meet Putin
President Donald Trump expressed his desire to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin soon to broker an end to the nearly three-year-old war in Ukraine, lamenting the massive loss of life caused by the conflict.
“One thing very important that I would really like to be able to do is to meet with President Putin soon to get that war ended, and that’s not the standpoint of the economy or anything else. It’s from the standpoint of millions of lives being wasted. Beautiful and young people are being shot on the battlefield,” Trump said.
He added that U.S. efforts to secure a peace settlement were “hopefully underway” but did not provide specific details. When asked about the likelihood of a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, Trump responded, “Well, you are going to have to ask Russia. Ukraine is ready to make a deal.”
Calling the war a tragedy, Trump remarked, “This is a war that should have never ever been started. I knew it (Ukraine) was the apple of President Putin’s eye, but I also knew that there was no way he was going in and he wasn’t going go in. When I was out, bad things happened.”
This followed a warning Trump issued on Wednesday to Putin, urging him to agree to a deal to end the war or face tariffs and sanctions. On his Truth Social platform, Trump declared, “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries.”
The Kremlin, in response, downplayed Trump’s threats, stating there was nothing particularly new in his remarks. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, “We carefully record all the nuances. We remain ready for dialogue, President Putin has repeatedly spoken about this – for equal dialogue, for mutually respectful dialogue.”