In a proposal that baffled most observers, U.S. President Donald Trump made a pitch to Chinese President Xi Jinping that has rarely been made in modern history.
President Trump’s suggestion that the Chinese government would buy U.S. weapons was another off-script statement that appeared to depart from official policy, and the State Department urged the U.S. government to make clear it had no such plans.
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David Perdue, the US special envoy to China, said in an interview with Fox News on Sunday that President Trump asked Xi “at some point” whether China was interested in acquiring American weapons. The president reportedly made the proposal during discussions with Xi regarding U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, although it is unclear whether it was made during last week’s summit between the two countries or on another occasion.
The comment is even more shocking given the US government’s concerns about Beijing’s support for Iran amid President Trump’s ongoing war with Iran.
Analysts quickly dismissed Trump’s proposal as lacking strategic logic, especially because of the arms embargo the United States has imposed on China since 1989.
Alejandro Reyes, an Asia-Pacific policy expert and professor at the University of Hong Kong, told Al Jazeera, “Such a ‘ploy’ by Donald Trump is a spontaneous flight of fancy that is not part of a strategy.”
“It is certainly unusual to suggest that a major strategic rival or adversary should buy weapons.”
But experts also said Trump has made clear how he views the Chinese government through a very mercenary framework.
Trump vs. US National Security
Analysts agreed that President Trump’s proposal was not a serious one, perhaps even a joke.
Because U.S. law strictly prohibits arms sales to China, and the U.S. government officially identifies China as a major strategic and economic competitor, there is no realistic policy framework for such a deal, said Einar Tangen, a senior fellow and analyst at the Beijing-based Center for International Governance Innovation.
“This is an impromptu negotiation probe aimed at disrupting the standard diplomatic script, testing reactions and generating transactional leverage,” Tangen told Al Jazeera.
The United States has always been concerned about China and its military capabilities, citing the fusion of the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) as a threat. The Chinese government is accused of acquiring and repurposing the world’s most advanced technology, including theft, to achieve “military superiority,” a US State Department memo said.
“The United States officially considers China a major national security threat,” Reyes said.
“The Pentagon’s long-term military plans treat China as the ‘only threat to slow the pace.’ This means the U.S. military primarily considers its technological superiority, naval capabilities, and current advances in AI against China’s capabilities and performance.”
President Trump’s comments were therefore a departure from the policy foundations of his administration, and that of previous administrations.
“This statement highlights the friction between President Trump’s transactional style of politics and a national security establishment that views China as a systemic rival that must be contained,” Tangen said.
Trump’s motivations, he explained, are based on the need to acquire rare earth metals to replenish America’s depleted weapons stockpile, which has been hit hard by the ongoing war with Iran. China dominates the global rare earth supply chain.
William Yang, senior analyst for Northeast Asia at Crisis Group, agreed that Trump views China through a transactional lens and said his proposals do not include any real, strategic thinking.
“This incident reflects President Trump’s almost purely transactional view of relations between Washington and China,” Yang told Al Jazeera. He added that this is also consistent with the president’s actions in his second term, where he made statements that contradicted existing U.S. policy, created confusion, and required clarification later.
A brief history of providing weapons to rivals
Historically, there have been few examples of arms deals between geopolitical rivals, and Trump’s proposal is particularly unusual. Still, there are some precedents.
During World War II, the United States’ Lend-Lease Act against the Allies included the Soviet Union, Tangen explained, but the Soviet Union was driven by a common enemy, Nazi Germany.
Years later, he said that technology cooperation between the United States and China in the late Cold War was “motivated by the common goal of countering Soviet power and never involved front-line technology.”
Dov H. Levin, a professor of international relations at the University of Hong Kong, also pointed to the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s, when the U.S. sent secret arms deals to Iran and Nicaragua that violated public policy established by the U.S. Congress and then-Gov.
“In the current bilateral relationship, I don’t think there are any American weapons systems that the United States would offer China to buy,” Levin told Al Jazeera.
According to Reyes, Britain sold jet engines to the Soviet Union in 1947 at the beginning of the Cold War. Meanwhile, he added, Nazi Germany sold unfinished heavy cruisers to the Soviet Union in 1940 during their brief approach and invaded the Soviet Union the following year.
“These cases demonstrate that commercial or strategic interests have sometimes permitted military transactions between rival or later adversary states,” Reyes said.
But Tangen argued that these deals reflected “temporary adjustments born of pressing geopolitical necessity.”
Today’s US and China
Analysts agreed that historical examples do not apply to today’s China-US relations.
“Today’s China-US relations are characterized by the fact that the two countries are in direct competition over the strategic balance of power in the Asia-Pacific and beyond, and are said to be moving toward an inevitable dynamic conflict,” Reyes said.
Analysts say that if President Trump were serious about using American weapons as a bargaining chip with Beijing, there would be multiple obstacles, including all sorts of national security constraints.
Arms sales to China “could undermine U.S. national security, give China access to advanced U.S. defense technologies, and further strengthen China’s military modernization efforts,” Yang said.
Additionally, the U.S. system is not consistent with the Chinese government’s security architecture, Tangen said.
“The U.S. model is built for global power projection. Platforms like the F-35 combine highly sophisticated technologies such as stealth, sensor fusion, and electronic warfare, but rely on an expensive and fragile ecosystem of tankers, AWACS, satellites, forward bases, and global logistics,” Tangen said.
Meanwhile, the Chinese model is built for regional defense and sovereignty protection, he added.
“Systems like the J-20 (Chinese fighter jet) are integrated into a strong regional framework that combines long-range missiles, drones, indigenous sensors, satellites and ground-based command and control, all supported by a large industrial base capable of mass production,” Tangen said.
Reyes frankly analyzed the Chinese government’s need for American-made weapons, saying, “China currently produces most of its own weapons. Why would it need to buy American-made weapons?”
military export competition
The two countries’ competition to expand military exports is no exception, as the two countries are at an impasse over competition over AI, rare earth metals, the Taiwan issue, and the Iran war.
Analysts said Trump may have made the weapons proposal to boost U.S. arms exports, but China has no interest in supporting a country it views as an existential threat.
The United States continues to dominate global arms exports, but China has gradually moved up the rankings to become the world’s fourth-largest exporter, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
The Chinese government is primarily focused on niche markets in the Global South.
“China has developed a market for affordable drones, fighter aircraft, and conventional weapons, especially in Pakistan (and elsewhere) in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East,” Reyes said.
While the Chinese government offers loans, local production and technology transfers with few strings attached, U.S. arms sales are “more closely tied to security partnerships, geopolitical and strategic alignment, training, and interoperability,” he added.
However, the rift between the US and China remains sharp.
For Tangen, the global defense race ultimately hinges on something more fundamental than ad hoc rhetoric or technological newness.
“It will depend on industrial capacity, economic sustainability and who can produce a reliable military force at scale,” he said.
