TRUMP LANDS IN CHINA WITH FOCUS ON TRADE

TRUMP TEAM TO PLAN $250 BN IN DEALS ON TRIP US COMMERCE SECRETARY ANNOUNCES DEALSWORTH $9 BN US CALLS ON CHINA TO CUT OFFTRADE WITH N KOREA

US President Donald Trump toured parts of Beijing on Wednesday after arriving for a high-stakes state visit where he’ll look for wins from Xi Jinping on everything from the US’s massive trade deficit to reining in North Korea.

The third leg of Trump’s five-nation Asia tour comes after stops in Tokyo and Seoul. Addressing South Korea’s parliament earlier Wednesday he had strong words for Kim Jong Un — even as he remained open to a potential deal on North Korea’s nuclear weapons. And he called on China, Kim’s main ally and biggest trading partner, to cut him off.

The state visit, which will meld intimate sit-downs with Xi alongside state dinners and gala events joined by dozens of business leaders, is China’s answer to his hosting Xi at his Florida estate, Mar a Lago, earlier this year. The main event is on Thursday, when Trump and Xi are scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting and make joint statements to reporters.

On Wednesday afternoon, Trump and First Lady Melania Trump joined Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, for an opera performance and a tour of the Forbidden City — the imperial palace that served as the political center of China’s government for almost 500 years. China’s state-run media said Trump showed Xi video clips of his granddaughter singing in Chinese.

The stop is by far the most important part of Trump’s trip, given that he believes China is central to reining in North Korea. And Trump’s personal brand of diplomacy — based in professions of deep friendship to get what he wants — will be tested by his ability to come away with Chinese promises to halt what he sees as predatory trade practices.

While Trump repeatedly bashed China on the campaign trail for its trade and currency policies, on this trip he has an incentive to cut deals. His approval rating has plunged to an alltime low, while Xi has tightened his grip on power to become China’s strongest leader in decades.

The White House expects to announce upwards of $250 billion in business deals in China this week, an administration official said — exactly the sort of US jobs-based diplomacy that President Donald Trump likes to deliver when traveling abroad.

On Wednesday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced deals worth about $9 billion that involving companies like General Electric, Caterpillar and Honeywell International. Few details were released, and Ross said more deals would be unveiled on Thursday.

The deals are expected to focus heavily on the energy sector. One of the biggest deals the Trump administration is currently negotiating is a multibillion-dollar energy investment from Chinese oil and gas giant China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., known as Sinopec, that would bring thousands of new jobs to hurricane-ravaged areas in Texas and the US Virgin Islands. This deal, too, would be a memorandum of understanding.

During a briefing in Japan alongside Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Trump cited his friendship with Xi, an awkward moment given the rivalry — which sometimes boils over into enmity — between Japan and China.

“I very much look forward to meeting with President Xi who is just off his great political victory,” Trump said in a tweet on Wednesday.

“We are coming off some of the strongest numbers we’ve ever had, and he knows that and he respects that,” Trump said. “He’s a friend of mine. We’re friends.”

Keeping that friendship may require tempering some of his previous criticisms of China over North Korea. While Trump left the door open in Seoul to meeting Kim or doing a deal to defuse the nuclear tensions, he also lashed out at the regime in extremely personal terms, especially over its treatment of its citizens. He accused Kim of turning North Korea into “a hell that no person deserves.”

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the president’s spokeswoman, said Trump intends to make a final determination on whether North Korea is a state sponsor of terrorism at the end of his fivenation Asia tour next week.

A US administration official, briefing reporters aboard Air Force One, said Trump is genuinely open to talks with Kim, but sees no evidence of that he would be willing to meet the first condition for talks: putting his nuclear weapons programme on the table, with a strict protocol for verification.