BEIJING — U.S. President Donald Trump seemed very pleased with all that he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping discussed during his two-day trip.. But how much they actually agreed to is unclear.. During a Friday briefing with reporters on Air Force One en route back to the U.S. from Beijing, Trump revealed few substantive agreements while suggesting that at Xi’s behest he was rethinking a key element of U.S. relations with Taiwan.. Trump provided no details of a potential U.S. sale of soybeans to China beyond a vague assertion that China would buy „billions of dollars“ worth.. He touted the sale of 200 Boeing aircraft to China but that was less than half of what some analysts and investors had expected. Beijing has not confirmed either of the agreements, and Boeing has not responded to requests for confirmation of the sale. Trump also confirmed that he and Xi had discussed „possibly working together for guard rails“ on the development and application of artificial intelligence systems.. And despite repeated assurances from White House officials that U.S. policy toward Taiwan would not be on the summit agenda, Trump said that the two leaders had discussed U.S. ties to the island at length. Trump said he was open to rethinking U.S. arms sales to Taiwan — a major longstanding demand from Beijing — even though Washington has long pledged to supply the island with defensive weapons to deter possible Chinese attack. “I’ll make a decision in the fairly near future,” Trump said when asked whether he would keep selling arms to Taiwan. Trump said he would consult „the person who is running Taiwan“ — apparently referring to President Lai Ching-te — as part of his decision-making. The “Monumental Event” Trump had touted never materialized, and what emerged instead was a fragile but stable trade truce. Nevertheless, this is a long way from the full-scale trade war that erupted a year earlier, and the Trump administration left the meeting having achieved its main objective: maintaining the current situation, in which tariffs on Chinese goods remain roughly in line with those imposed by the rest of the world. “The summit yielded limited, presentable and controlled results — about as much as the U.S.-China relationship can handle at the moment,” said Craig Singleton, a China expert at the hard-line Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank. It is unclear whether Trump will reconsider arms sales to Taiwan, but he made it plain that he does not feel constrained by the 1982 commitment made by former President Ronald Reagan to the island, under which Washington would not discuss weapons sales to Taiwan with Beijing. “So what am I supposed to do?” Trump ütles. Say „I don’t feel like discussing it.“
Artificial Intelligence – POLITICO