The invitation is an unorthodox move by Trump
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Xi Jinping rejected President-elect Donald Trump’s invitation to the inauguration, it is reported.
The Chinese president was invited to Trump’s second inauguration on January 20, but reports showed that the leader would not attend, CNN reports.
The invitation was an unorthodox move by Trump, who said he was “considering inviting other people to the inauguration” at the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday.
“And some people said, ‘Wow, that’s a little risky, isn’t it?’” Trump said. “And I said, ‘Maybe it is. We’ll see. We’ll see what happens.’ But we like to take little chances.”
Transition spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt revealed that the Chinese leader had been invited to appear on Fox.
“This is a very attractive move by Trump that fits very well with his practice of unpredictability. I don’t think I expected that,” Lily McElwee, deputy director and Freeman chair of China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told CNN.
“This is a very, very cheap carrot. It’s a symbolic carrot — it disrupts the tone of the relationship a little bit in a way that certainly doesn’t undermine U.S. interests.”
No foreign head of state has ever attended a U.S. inauguration, according to State Department records.
“We have relations with China.
Last month, Trump threatened to impose 25% price lists on goods imported from Mexico and Canada, as well as additional 10% price lists on goods from China. These three countries constitute the main trading partners of the United States.
“Drugs are pouring into our Country, mostly through Mexico, at levels never seen before,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last month. “Until such time as they stop, we will be charging China an additional 10% Tariff, above any additional Tariffs, on all of their many products coming into the United States of America.”
In response, a spokesperson for China’s embassy in the U.S. wrote on X: “China-US economic and trade cooperation is mutually beneficial in nature. No one will win a trade war or a tariff war.”
In the aftermath of Trump’s election victory, some experts have been warning about how tariffs could impact consumers and could lead to inflation.
Over the summer, a group of Nobel prize winners wrote a letter warning about Trump’s economic plans, saying his policies could have a “destabilizing effect.”
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