Jack Crosbie
View all posts by Jack Crosbie September 28, 2026 Add us as a Google Preferred Source
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Donald Trump welcomes Xi Jinping to speak during a state dinner in the East Room of the White House on Sept. 24, 2026 in Washington, D.C. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s lavish state visit to Washington, D.C., last week, Donald Trump made his greatest rival a tantalizing offer: How would you like to buy some of America’s finest weaponry?
In the past, U.S. military technology has been a closely guarded secret, especially as China is concerned. Special forces soldiers and spies have fought and died to keep pieces of fallen fighter planes out of Chinese hands, while Chinese intelligence services have devoted decades of work to cracking the secrets of the U.S. arms industry. But according to David Perdue, the U.S. Ambassador to China, Trump mentioned that the U.S. could send some of its weaponry to China, for a price.
“President Trump continues to say, ‘Hey, we sell arms to other people around the world,’” Perdue said on Fox News Sunday. “He actually asked President Xi [if he] would he like to buy some at one point.”
It’s easy to pass this off as an off-handed Trump comment, the kind of thing he tosses off to a world leader without thinking it through. And the actual institutions in charge of prospective arms deals have been quick to deny that there is any kind of U.S.-China armed trade deal in the works. The White House and State Department both issued denials, with the latter noting that U.S. law would prohibit an arms sale to China.
And yet, Trump has done exactly this kind of precedent-breaking international maneuver before. He accepted a ludicrously expensive jet from the Qatari royal family, despite glaring security flaws and a clear conflict of interest. He recently agreed to send Israel $2.8 billion in taxpayer-purchased arms. And an arms deal to China would certainly fit within Trump’s worldview: everything is deals, after all, so why shouldn’t the military be on the table?
U.S. arms sales to Taiwan have been a major factor in the relationship between the two countries for decades. Trump has already indicated that he takes a softer stance than his predecessors there: He has been delaying the latest such deal, a $14 billion shipment that has already been approved by Congress for months.
