China, in his words · First term · № 77
Said China used money from US trade to build its military and raised 'decoupling'
“there's been no country anywhere, at any time, that's ripped us off like China has. We lose billions and billions of dollars for years and years, decades. ... And they take that money, and they build their military. And you see they're building up a powerful military. ... So we lose billions of dollars, and if we didn't do business with them, we wouldn't lose billions of dollars. It's called "decoupling."”
- Said
- , Labor Day news conference, White House North Portico
- Subject
- decoupling and military
- Threat
- Economic and military
- Topic
- Trade & tariffs
- Era
- First term
What the record showed
In the same news conference he said 'I made a great trade deal with China' and that China was making record purchases of corn and soybeans. The Peterson Institute for International Economics found China bought 58 percent of what it had committed to purchase over 2020-21. Census Bureau figures show two-way goods trade with China rose from $557.1 billion in 2020 to $690.3 billion in 2022. Under a deal announced November 1, 2025, the United States cut its fentanyl-related tariffs on Chinese imports by 10 percentage points and suspended an export-control rule for one year, while China agreed to buy U.S. soybeans and issue general licenses for rare earth exports.