China Unlikely to Invest $1-T in U.S.

Chinese analysts say Beijing wants to “extend the current trade truce, ease sanctions and technology restrictions, and potentially secure assurances that the US will pull back on arms sales to Taiwan,” Andrew Romano reported for Yahoo News.

Tensions surrounding Iran have weakened Trump’s negotiating position. (Photo: The White House Facebook)

There has also been talk of a grander bargain, with President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping reportedly considering a deal that would allow China to invest $1 trillion in the US, largely to build factories on American soil.

“If they want to come in and build the plant and hire you and hire your friends and your neighbors, that’s great,” Trump told the Detroit Economic Club in January, referring to Chinese automakers.

“I love that. Let China come in.”

But experts say such a massive investment deal appears unlikely at the moment, partly because tensions surrounding Iran have weakened Trump’s negotiating position.

Yue Gang, a retired Chinese colonel, told The New York Times that Trump had originally “intended to visit China with the air of a swift victor.”

However, he argued that the war “has significantly diminished the US military’s ability to project its combat power,” leaving Trump “unable to project the same arrogance” or force major concessions in return.

In contrast, Beijing has weathered the ongoing energy crisis better than expected and does not appear eager to help end the fighting in Iran.

“The chance of anything of substance emerging from these talks is little more than zero,” Allen Carlson, a China expert at Cornell University, told Time magazine.