President Donald Trump will visit China in November, his former chief White House strategist revealed to DailyMail.com on Tuesday.
The White House has confirmed that Trump will visit Vietnam and the Philippines for a trio of economic summits.
But a stop in China has so far not been part of any official administration plans.
Bannon told DailyMail.com in Hong Kong that the president will pursue a mission of negotiating a new trade relationship with President Xi Jinping.
‘There’s too much at stake to slip into a trade war right off the bat,’ Bannon said in an interview coinciding with a speech at an investor forum.
‘I think it has to be engagement [between] the United States and China. I think the November meeting with the president is going to really be that, and I think good things will come out of it,’ he said.
Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon said Tuesday that President Donald Trump will visit with President Xi Jinping in China during his travel swing through the Far East
Trump and Xi last met at the G20 summit in Germany on July 8
‘I think we’ll avoid a trade war,’ Bannon predicted, ‘simply for the fact that the president has shown that he’s prepared to do whatever it takes to protect American jobs, and to bring back manufacturing jobs.’
‘So, you know, you have a very aggressive president. But I think they’ll reach some sort of accommodation.’
A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a question about whether a stop in Beijing has been added to the president’s November travel schedule.
Bannon’s speech on Tuesday was closed to the media, but an investor who was present told DailyMail.com that the former West Wing aide announced to hundreds of attendees that Trump intends to take his diplomacy tour straight to Beijing.
Bannon himself told DailyMail.com that a major sticking point will be the result of an ongoing U.S. probe into China’s alleged rampant theft of intellectual property.
The ‘Section 301’ investigation, undertaken in August by the U.S. Trade Representative under an obscure portion of a 1974 trade law, could result in new tariffs on Chinese products.
Bannon conceded on Tuesday that it’s impossible to know how much that could impact the prices U.S. consumers pay for Chinese-made goods.
Bannon, who left the White House last month, gave his first post-West-Wing speech Turesday in Hong Kong – but the event’s organizers refused to let reporters attend
‘They’re basically taking – forcing – the heart of American capitalism, which is innovation in Silicon Valley,’ Bannon complained, claiming that if Americans want to enter Chinese markets, they ‘basically have to give up your intellectual property.’
‘This is a big deal for the president. No other administration has ever done it, on intellectual property,’ he said.
Asked to forecast the potential consequences, Bannon paused and said: ‘I don’t know.’
‘It may – that’s all to be determined. You know, might there be some price increases in some stuff? Yeah, maybe.’
‘But if you don’t solve this problem, you’re not going to have the American innovation culture that you have. It’s the heart – this is not a side issue. … This is the dilemma that no administration has wanted to face.’
Trump’s schedule calls for stops in Vietnam and the Philippines, but the White House hasn’t said anything official about a Beijing detour
Trump could bring bad news to Xi in November if the U.S. Trade Representative’s investigation into intellectual property theft is complete by Novemer
Bannon spoke to the CLSA Investors’ Forum using PowerPoint slides, according to two attendees.
One provided notes showing the content of Bannon’s slides about Asia, which Bannon confirmed after his speech.
‘Forced technology transfer will be the central issue that must be resolved,’ read one slide.
‘To avoid a trade war, China must cease its economic war against America.’
A second slide pointed to the Trump administration’s ‘rejection’ of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trading bloc as an example of a ‘new American focus on “reciprocity”.’
From there, Bannon’s Powerpoint forecasts how the White House will focus on reciprocal trade deals to impact NAFTA, the ‘301 investigation’ – which he claims has cost the U.S. ‘$3.5 trillion in the last 10 years’ – and the United States–Korea Free Trade Agreement, which he describes as a question of ‘terminate or renegotiate.’