‘Only time will tell’ on improving US-China trade

The US strikes came as President Donald Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping in Florida to press the leader of North Korea’s sole diplomatic ally to do more to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions.

The United States on Thursday launched 59 Tomahawk missiles at Syria to neutralize its chemical weapon arsenal, two days after reports of a chemical weapons attack emerged from the battleground in Syria, which the West said the Syrian government should be to blame.

Trump has received widespread support for the military action, taken to punish Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government after the USA concluded he used chemical weapons against Syrian civilians.

The official China Daily newspaper said it was encouraging to see the two-day summit that ended on Friday “going as well as it could”, after earlier “confusing signals” from Washington about how it was approaching the U.S. “We hope all sides will stay calm and exercise restraint to prevent the escalation of tension”.

By Thursday, his team had come up with three options, but Mr Trump was already back at his $175 million Florida estate for his first summit with the Chinese President when the top-secret briefing took place.

While Trump would not say what he wants China to do specifically, he said he thinks China will “want to be stepping up” on the North Korea issue.

The National Security Council presented options to President Trump on how to deal with the growing threat from North Korea which include assassinating dictator Kim Jong Un. “What is clear is that Trump understands what American power can change and is willing to use it”.

Despite the strike, there has been “no change” to the U.S. military posture in Syria, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said.

Bill Bishop, a Sinologist who tracks China’s state media and political machinations, said it was possible that China would have a more forceful response once Xi had returned from his trip, but not now. They reaffirmed their commitment to a denuclearization of the divided Korean Peninsula.

Zhang added that Xi may not have been angered by the surprise strike.

Xi reciprocated Trump’s warm words, saying the summit had “uniquely important significance” and thanking Trump for a warm reception.

She said Congress “must live up to its constitutional responsibility to debate an authorization of the use of military force against a sovereign nation”.

He said the U.S. Beijing worries that similar campaigns could jeopardize its own grip on power.

He predicted that US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley will play a key role in compelling her foreign counterparts to pressure Assad out of power.

China has repeatedly voted with Russian Federation against USA – and British-sponsored United Nations resolutions aimed at pressuring Assad by imposing sanctions on Syria.

Trump and Xi also established a new and cabinet-level framework for negotiations, he said. The target, Shayrat airfield, was believed by Washington to be the base from which Syrian warplanes carried out the chemical attack, which killed more than 70 people and wounded scores of others in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib.

With a limited but decisive response to Syrian President Bashar Assad’s alleged use of banned sarin nerve gas on Syrian civilians, Trump won plaudits from previously skeptical USA allies in Europe, as well as from some of his harshest critics at home. The missile strikes on Syria bring more weight to that statement.

Trump also accepted an invitation from Xi to visit China, China’s official New China News Agency reported Friday.