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The US president is reportedly not interested in informal diplomatic contact with China on trade

US President Donald Trump has stifled almost every channel of diplomatic outreach with China, aiming to deal directly with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, as the trade war between the two superpowers escalates, Politico has reported citing anonymous sources.

Ahah. All the claims of China not wanting to negotiate proven false yet again. They’ve been reaching out through the usual channels but Trump isn’t interested.

The US president is adamant about direct negotiations with Xi, and has stifled other diplomatic avenues, Politico wrote on Saturday, citing anonymous former US State Department officials and an industry official.

Trump has not authorized White House delegates to engage with Beijing, the outlet cited its sources as saying. In addition, the Senate has not confirmed a US ambassador to China, Trump has not nominated an official to lead a diplomatic effort, and Washington has thus far not reached out to the Chinese embassy, Politico reported.

“The backchannels don’t work because President Trump doesn’t want them to,” […]

“Trump wants to deal directly with President Xi in the same way he has with Putin,” he said.

Washington is waiting for Beijing to reach out and call first, CNN wrote earlier this month, citing anonymous officials.

Trump doesn’t want to flinch first because of saving face. Xi understandably doesn’t want to deal with this. Trump sees himself as some incredible negotiator and I think has an innate admiration for people he sees as “strongmen” according to western propaganda hence his desires to get directly together with Putin and Xi to act tough and feel tough standing up to them. He thinks he can talk “Mano a Mano” or man to man and get the best deal.

This bodes badly for any resolution to this obviously as Trump is going to keep pushing for a sit-down with Xi.