Trump Denies Asking China’s Xi About Potential US Arms Sales

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said he has not discussed selling arms to China, contradicting a suggestion made by his ambassador to Beijing.

"I never heard of that," the president told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, when asked about Ambassador David Perdue's statement over the weekend. Trump initially appeared confused and clarified if the reporter meant arms sales to Taiwan.

Perdue told Fox News on Sunday that Trump had asked Chinese President Xi Jinping if he would to like to buy some American armaments.

"They probably like to buy it because we do make better equipment than that. So maybe it's a good idea. But we didn't discuss that," Trump said on Monday.

Any suggestion that the US would sell arms to China would send shockwaves through the US national security community and alarm Washington's allies, given that Beijing is the US's chief geopolitical rival.