Secretary of State Marco Rubio says it’s “high probability” President Donald Trump will meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping sometime this year.
Rubio’s comments came Friday, the same day the secretary of state met with China’s director of the Office of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Foreign Affairs Commission and Foreign Minister Wang Yi at a security forum in Malaysia.
“Obviously, look, we’re two big, powerful countries, and there are always going to be issues that we disagree on,” Rubio told reporters after his meeting with Wang.
“I thought it was a very constructive, positive meeting,” Rubio said, adding that there is “a lot of work to do.”
Trump and Xi have “a very good relationship,” Rubio said. “Obviously, there are some issues we’re going to have to work through.”
“Because of the size of the two countries, there needs to be open lines of communication between the two governments, and Secretary Rubio is undoubtedly doing his best to advocate for U.S. interests with the People’s Republic of China,” Jeff Smith, director of the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal.
“But we should temper expectations,” Smith cautioned. “Having constructive talks is a means to an end, not a final destination. And it’s not yet clear what Beijing is prepared to do to address our serious, numerous, and growing set of concerns about Chinese activities inside the U.S. and its aggressive behavior in the Indo-Pacific.”
Rubio met with counterparts from 26 nations during the multiday Association of Southeast Asian Nations regional forum this week.
“We talked about threats in the region that impact Americans and agreed to continue addressing them together,” Rubio said of his conversations with world leaders. “We’ll find new areas of cooperation to fight transnational crime, shut down cyber-scam centers, combat violent extremism, and protect maritime security.”
Chinese and U.S. relations remain tense with trade playing a large role in the relational dynamics between the two world powers. Goods coming into the U.S. from China are currently taxed 30%, down from 145% tariffs earlier this year, as Trump seeks to decrease U.S. dependence on China and boost U.S. manufacturing.
“We’re resetting tariff levels with virtually every country in the world,” Rubio told reporters forum, when asked about the issue of U.S. trade with other nations. The U.S. currently has imposed a minimum 10% tariff on many of its trading partners.
“Trade needed to be revisited,” Rubio said, adding that Trump “campaigned on that, and that’s what he’s doing, and he’s resetting it on a global scale.”
On Thursday evening, Trump announced on the platform Truth Social that he was raising tariffs on Canadian goods to 35%, one day after the president announced a 50% tariff on copper imports, citing “national security” concerns.
Trump also announced this week a 50% tariff on goods from Brazil; 30% on Sri Lanka, Libya, Iraq, and Algeria; 25% on Moldova and Brunei; and 20% on goods from the Philippines.
