On Friday he was proposing the signing of the document detailing Phase-1 of the proposed deal take place in the state of Iowa.
Iowa has worn the brunt of the trade war between the U.S. and China. It is also a key state in the 2020 election.
The president on Friday it was important to get the deal done before a decision is made on the location for the signing. To dress it up even more, Mr Trump indicated he and the President of China Xi Jinping would be the signatories. It was a given, as far as he was concerned, that the signing would take place in the United States,
“We’re looking at a different couple of locations. It could even be in Iowa,” he told reporters at a White House press conference. “We’re discussing locations, but I like to get deals done first.”
It was expected a formal signing could have taken place at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Santiago, Chile which was to have run from 14 to 17 November, however Chile has bowed out as the host country because of the accelerating protests there which have resulted in 18 deaths. “This has been a very difficult decision, a decision that causes us a lot of pain, because we fully understand the importance of APEC and COP-25 for Chile and for the world,” President Sebastian Pinera said in a statement on Wednesday.
“A president must always put his compatriots above all else,” he said. “Our main concern is re-establishing public order, our citizens’ safety and social peace along with pushing through a social agenda to respond to the main demands of our citizens.”
Trump said his preference anyway was for the signing to occur in the United States. “I would do it in the U.S.,” he told reporters. Asked if Xi would too, Trump said: “He would too.”
