Trump says China rebuilt itself with money drained out of US
President of the United States, Donald Trump on Wednesday claimed China rebuilt itself with the "tremendous amount" of money pouring out of the US. Trump further asserted "everyone", including Beijing has ripped off the US. China has been taking out USD 500 billion a year from the US, Trump said.
The US president made the statement while addressing a joint news conference with the visiting Polish President Andrzej Duda at the White House.
"They (Chinese) rebuilt their country with tremendous amounts of money pouring out of the United States. I've changed that around. If you look at what's going on, our market is going up like a rocket ship. I don't want their market to go down, but their market is down 32 per cent in three months. Because we can't let them do anymore what they've done," he said.
"Over the last number of years, China has taken out of this country USD 500 billion and more a year. That would go a long way for Poland, wouldn't it? You could rebuild your whole country. And that's what China did," Trump added.
Trump said he keeps a close watch on trade deficits as it was "very important".
"When a country has USD 375 billion in trade deficits, and then many billions of dollars in other liabilities of all different types, one has to do something about it," said the US president.
The United States has become a “piggy bank” to the countries of the world, Trump said, adding the nation has been "ripped off by everyone".
"We have been ripped off by China. We've been ripped off by the European Union…We've been ripped off by everybody. I want to protect the American worker, the American farmer, the ranchers, the companies. We're not being ripped off in a little while," he said.
On question of trade tariffs against China, Trump said it should have been done for the last 20 years.
"It got to a point where the numbers were too big. This should have been done for the last 20 years. If you look at the World Trade Organization, that's when China really happened, economically. It was like a rocket ship, because they took advantage of the rules of the WTO," the US president said.
