Washington: US President Donald Trump has claimed that China has lost more than 20 lakhs jobs in a very short period of time, due to his tough policies, including imposing additional import tariffs.
Chinese economy, he said, is doing "very, very" poorly."China is eating the tariffs because of monetary manipulation. And also, they're pouring a lot of money into their country because they don't want to lose jobs...
They lost over two million jobs in a short period of time," Trump told reporters at Bedminster in New Jersey on Sunday.
Trump said China wants to make a trade deal with the US. Officials of the two countries are having a series of meetings on this for the past several months. "We will see what happens. But they definitely want to make a deal," he said.
He refused to comment on reports that he has spoken to the Chinese President Xi Jinping on this. "They've had the worst year they've had in 27 years because of what I've done.
They want to come to the negotiating table. The companies are leaving. They are laying off millions of people because they don't want to pay 25 per cent (import tariff)," he said.
Trump said that the Chinese want to come to the table for talks on a trade deal.
"I don't think there's another reason other than President Xi, I'm sure, likes me very much. But they're losing millions and millions of jobs in China. We are not paying for the tariffs; China is paying for the tariffs, for the one-hundredth time," he said.
By Lalit K Jha
