Trump made more concerning comments about China and Taiwan

Donald Trump is back to making new headlines. Recent remarks that the former president made about how he would get China to stand down from blockading Taiwan caught the interest of some news outlets.

While speaking with the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board in an interview on the 18th of October, Trump revealed something worrying while responding to a question about the blockade of Taiwan by China. 

What did the former president say? Let’s take a look at his comments and what he told the Wall Street Journal about how he'd persuade China's Xi Jinping to stand down from a hypothetical blockade of Taiwan. 

“Oh, very easy,” Trump explained when asked by Wall Street Journal page editor Paul Gigot. “I had a very strong relationship with him.” The former president continued before going on to ramble out a non-answer. 

“He was actually really good, I don’t want to say friend—I don’t want to act foolish, ‘he was my friend’—but I got along with him great. He stayed at Mar-a-Lago with me, so we got to know each other great. He’s a very fierce person.” Trump said. 

The Wall Street Journal noted that the Mar-a-logo visit Trump was talking about coincided with the 2017 American bombing of Syria, which Trump said he discussed with Xi while he was visiting him at Mar-a-Lago. 

“I said, ‘President, we’ve just shot 58 missiles into Syria to an airport that’s housing a lot of new planes. Your people are not at risk, but they’re on their way right now,’” Trump explained according to the recollection of the event he explained to Gigot

“He hears it and he goes, ‘Repeat.’... I said, ‘You speak English, don’t you?’” The Wall Street Journal pointed out that prior to the encounter, Trump and Xi had only spoken to each other through interpreters. 

“I repeated it, and he understood it. He sat like this, he’s a good poker player. First it looked like he was furious, right? I repeated it again. ‘Oh, OK.’ Then we got back to—he was pretty cool. But he’s a fierce guy,” Trump added. 

The former president made his way back to the question Gigot asked him about how he would get Beijing to stand down from blockading Taiwan, and Trump answered that he would tax China. 

“I would say: If you go into Taiwan, I’m sorry to do this, I’m going to tax you at 150% to 200%,” Trump said, meaning he would impose tariffs on China if it blockaded Taiwan according to the Wall Street Journal. 

When Gigot inquired about whether or not Trump would consider military force to get Xi to step black from a blockade of Taiwan, the former president stated: “I wouldn’t have to, because he respects me and he knows I’m f— crazy.”

The former president’s comment was quite worrying considering he could be reelected by voters in November. However, his remark about taxing China has some precedent since it was a strategy he used in his first term against Beijing. 

Reuters noted in its reporting on Trump’s comments that from 2017 to 2021, “Trump's aggressive approach toward China was underscored by waves of tariffs that plunged the two countries into a trade war that moved markets worldwide.”

Trump has also said that he was considering plans to impose blanket tariffs of 10% to 20% on all imported goods and 60% or more in tariffs on all Chinese goods coming into the United States if he were elected to the White House. 

While Taiwan has been independently governed since 1949, the Council on Foreign Relations noted in a February 2024 article that Beijing sees the island as a part of its own territory and not as an independent nation. 

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