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Xi Jinping has snubbed President-elect Donald Trump’s invitation to the inauguration, according to reports.
The Chinese president was invited to Trump’s second inauguration on January 20, but sources confirmed the leader would not be attending, CNN reports.
The invite was an unorthodox move from Trump, who said he had been “thinking about inviting certain people to the inauguration” at an appearance at the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday.
“And some people said, ‘Wow, that’s a little risky, isn’t it?’” Trump said. “And I said, ‘Maybe it is. We’ll see. We’ll see what happens.’ But we like to take little chances.”
Transition spokesperson Karoline Leavitt confirmed that the Chinese leader had been invited during an appearance on Fox & Friends Thursday morning.
“This is a very interesting move by Trump that fits very well with his practice of unpredictability. I don’t think anyone expected this,” Lily McElwee, deputy director and fellow in the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told CNN.
“This is a very, very cheap carrot. It’s a symbolic carrot — it disrupts the tone of the relationship a little bit in a way that certainly doesn’t undermine U.S. interests.”
No foreign head of state has ever attended a U.S. inauguration, according to State Department records.
“We have a good relationship with China. I have a good relationship,” Trump told CNBC.
Last month, Trump threatened to impose 25 percent tariffs on imported goods from Mexico and Canada as well as an additional 10 percent tariffs on goods from China. These three countries represent the U.S.’s top trading partners.
“Drugs are pouring into our Country, mostly through Mexico, at levels never seen before,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last month. “Until such time as they stop, we will be charging China an additional 10% Tariff, above any additional Tariffs, on all of their many products coming into the United States of America.”
In response, a spokesperson for China’s embassy in the U.S. wrote on X: “China-US economic and trade cooperation is mutually beneficial in nature. No one will win a trade war or a tariff war.”
In the aftermath of Trump’s election victory, some experts have been warning about how tariffs could impact consumers and could lead to inflation.
Over the summer, a group of Nobel prize winners wrote a letter warning about Trump’s economic plans, saying his policies could have a “destabilizing effect.”
