WASHINGTON, May 16: The relationship that the US President Donald Trump was able to establish with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Mar-a-Lago last month is paying dividends, the White House has said.
“The relationship that the President established with President Xi down in Mar-a-Lago is continuing to pay dividends for our country,” the White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters at his daily news conference.
“Whether it’s this policy, or trade, or market access, we’re going to continue to see all of those individuals from the President’s Cabinet that were down in Mar-a-Lago continue to work with their counterparts in China to find a path forward,” he said.
Going forward the United States and China are going to collaborate in a lot of areas, he said.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon reiterated its resolve towards maintaining freedom of navigation in South China Sea and other parts of the world.
“It’s unfortunate that that issue, if you do a quick word association game and you say “freedom of navigation operations,” the immediate thing that comes back into the person’s mind is China, and that’s actually not what freedom of navigation is about,” the Pentagon Spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters at a news conference here.
“We did last year, freedom of navigation assertions against 22 different countries all over the world. Many of those countries are friends and allies. It’s not about one country. It’s not about one body of water,” he said.
“Unfortunately, I think the public narrative has made it about China and the South China Sea. It’s not that. It’s about asserting international rights to navigate in waters that international law accepts, and these are rights and benefits that benefit all countries on Earth, to include China,” Davis said.
“We will continue to do them. But we don’t intend certainly to tell you about them in advance, and we do tell you about them after,” he said in response to a question. (PTI)
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