Donald Trump got himself confused about how long his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping lasted while trying to hype it up.
Speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews on Sunday night, the 80-year-old president gave two different accounts of the length of his crunch talks with his Chinese counterpart.
“We had an incredible meeting with President Xi, and it lasted a long time. I mean, actually two days. If you think about it,” Trump said.
“This last three days has been very amazing. That was a great meeting with President Xi. A lot of good things happened, including for our farmers.”
Xi arrived in the U.S. last Wednesday for the crunch talks with Trump and departed Friday, meaning the two leaders of global powerhouses had three days of discussions.
Trump made the extremely rare decision to meet Xi as soon as he landed at Joint Base Andrews and rolled out the red carpet for the Chinese leader as part of his desperate attempts to woo him ahead of the talks.
However, progress was modest or nonexistent.
The two countries agreed to a short two-month trade truce after both Trump and Beijing imposed retaliatory tariffs against each other, with further negotiations expected.
There was no breakthrough on safeguarding the use of artificial intelligence, as the two countries battle to lead the AI race amid warnings that the technology could evolve so much that it could pose an existential threat to humanity.
Xi did agree to loan the U.S. two pandas, which will live at Zoo Atlanta for 10 years.
Trump’s desperate sucking up to Xi—including hosting a lavish state dinner and offering him a tour of the White House—was also rocked by reports that China has been assisting Iran with military aid, technology and intelligence during its war with the U.S.
David Perdue, Trump’s ambassador to Beijing, told CNBC that Trump warned Xi that China’s support for Iran amid the conflict, which continues to embarrass the 80-year-old president, was “totally unacceptable.”
In a separate interview with Fox News on Thursday, Perdue said Beijing had already responded to Trump’s remarks.
“We’ve seen movement…on that already. That’s what the commitment is,” Perdue said. “They assured us yesterday they’re not doing that.”
Trump cited the war with Iran, which has dragged on for seven months with no end in sight, as one of the dubious reasons why the U.S. is “winning.”
“With the exception of oil, which is lower than the Biden administration, and we no longer have to worry about nuclear weapons with Iran because they’re wiped out,” Trump said at Joint Base Andrews.
“We inherited the worst inflation in the history of our country, and it’s going really down. 401(k)s are at their all-time high. The stock markets are at their all-time high, and our country is doing really well.”
