Arming an adversary: Why Trump’s offer to sell China weapons belies US policy

In an offer that baffled most observers, United States President Donald Trump has made a pitch to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping that has seldom been made in modern history.

Trump’s suggestion that Beijing buy US weapons was another off-script remark that appeared to stray from official policy, prompting the State Department to clarify that Washington has no such plans.

Trump asked Xi “at one point” whether China was interested in procuring US arms, the US envoy to Beijing, David Perdue, said in an interview with Fox News on Sunday. The president reportedly made the suggestion in discussions with Xi about US arms sales to Taiwan, but it was unclear whether that happened during their joint summit last week or at another time.

The comments are all the more striking given Washington’s concerns about Beijing’s support for Iran, as Trump’s ongoing war with Tehran continues.

Analysts were quick to dismiss Trump’s proposal as lacking any strategic logic – not least of all due to the arms embargo the US has imposed on China since 1989.

“Such ‘gambits’ by Donald Trump [are] spontaneous flights of fancy that are not part of any strategy,” Alejandro Reyes, an Asia Pacific policy specialist and professor at the University of Hong Kong, told Al Jazeera.

“It is certainly unusual to suggest to your main strategic rival and adversary [that it] should buy your weapons.”

But experts also said it revealed how Trump views Beijing: through a strictly mercenary framework.

Trump versus US national security

The analysts were in agreement that Trump’s offer was not a serious proposal and possibly even a joke.

US law strictly prohibits arms sales to China and Washington officially identifies Beijing as its primary strategic and economic competitor – so there is no practical policy framework for such a transaction, said Beijing-based analyst Einar Tangen, a senior fellow at the Center for International Governance Innovation.

“It is an off-the-cuff negotiating probe designed to disrupt standard diplomatic scripts, test reactions and create transactional leverage,” Tangen told Al Jazeera.

The US has always viewed China and its military capabilities with concern, citing its Communist Party’s fusion with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) as a threat. It has accused Beijing of acquiring and diverting the world’s cutting-edge technologies – including through theft – in order to achieve “military dominance”, a US State Department memo states.

“The US officially regards China as a leading national security threat,” said Reyes.

“The Pentagon’s long-term military planning treats China as the ‘sole pacing threat’, meaning that the US military reckons its technological edge, naval capacity and now its AI progress primarily against China’s capabilities and performance.”

Trump’s remarks were therefore a departure from the policy underpinnings of his administration – and that of previous administrations.

“The remark highlights the friction between Trump’s transactional political style and a national security establishment that views China as a systemic rival to be contained,” said Tangen.

Trump’s motivation, he explained, is based on his need to acquire rare earth metals to replenish America’s depleted weapons stockpiles – which have taken a major hit following his ongoing war with Iran. China dominates the world’s rare earth supply chains.

William Yang, a senior analyst on North East Asia at Crisis Group, agreed that Trump views Beijing through a transactional lens – and that his offer held no realistic, strategic thinking.

“This incident reflects Trump’s almost pure transactional view of Washington’s relationship with Beijing,” Yang told Al Jazeera. It’s also in line with the president’s conduct throughout his second term – making remarks that contradict existing US policies, which sow confusion and require clarification later, he added.

A brief history of arming rivals

History offers few examples of geopolitical rivals striking arms deals, making Trump’s proposal particularly unusual. Yet, there are a handful of precedents.

During World War II, the US’ Lend-Lease Act to Allied countries also included the Soviet Union – as they were driven by a common enemy, Nazi Germany, explained Tangen.

Years later, technological cooperation between the US and China in the late Cold War “was motivated by a shared objective of countering Soviet power and it never involved frontline technology”, he said.

Dov H. Levin, a professor of international relations at the University of Hong Kong, also pointed to the Iran-Contra affair, when in the eighties, the US sent secret weapons transactions to Iran and Nicaragua – which violated the US Congress and the stated public policy of the government at the time.

“I see no US weapon system that the US would plausibly offer China to purchase in the current state of their bilateral relationship,” Levin told Al Jazeera.

Britain sold jet engines to the Soviet Union in 1947 during the early Cold War, said Reyes. Nazi Germany, in turn, sold the Soviet Union an unfinished heavy cruiser in 1940, during their temporary rapprochement, before invading the country the following year, he added.

“These cases show how commercial or strategic interests have sometimes permitted military transactions between countries that were rivals or subsequently became adversaries,” said Reyes.

But Tangen argued that such transactions reflected “temporary alignments born of immediate geopolitical necessity”.

US-China today

The analysts agreed that the historical examples do not translate to the relationship between China and the US today.

“What distinguishes today’s China-US relationship is that the two countries are directly competing over the strategic balance of power in the Asia Pacific and beyond – and are even said to be heading for inevitable kinetic conflict,” said Reyes.

If Trump genuinely wanted to use US weapons as a bargaining chip with Beijing, there are multiple barriers in his way, not least of all national security constraints, said the analysts.

Selling weapons to Beijing “would potentially compromise US national security, allow China to gain access to advanced US defence technology and further bolster China’s military modernisation efforts,” said Yang.

Additionally, US systems do not align with Beijing’s security architecture, said Tangen.

“The US model is built for global power projection. Platforms like the F-35 combine extreme technological sophistication – such as stealth, sensor fusion and electronic warfare – but depend on an expensive, vulnerable ecosystem of tankers, AWACS, satellites, forward bases and global logistics,” Tangen said.

The Chinese model, meanwhile, is built for regional defence and sovereignty protection, he added.

“Systems like the J-20 [Chinese fighter jet] are integrated into a robust regional framework combining long-range missiles, drones, domestic sensors, satellites and land-based command-and-control, all backed by a massive industrial base capable of high-volume mass production,” said Tangen.

Reyes was blunt in his analysis of Beijing’s need for US arms: “China now produces most of its own weapons. Why would it need to buy American?”

The military exports race

With the two powers gridlocked in competition over AI, rare-earth metals, the question of Taiwan and the Iran war – their race to increase military exports is no exception.

While Trump may have made the weapons proposal to bolster US arms exports, China has no interest in helping a country that sees it as an existential threat, said the analysts.

The US continues to dominate global arms exports, but China is edging its way higher, becoming the world’s fourth biggest exporter, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Beijing has largely turned to niche markets in the Global South.

“China has carved out a market for affordable drones, combat aircraft and conventional weapons, particularly in Pakistan [and other parts of] Asia, Africa and the Middle East,” said Reyes.

While Beijing offers financing, local production and technology transfers with few strings attached, US arms sales “are more closely tied to security partnerships, geopolitical and strategic alignment, training and interoperability”, he added.

The gap between the US and China, however, remains stark.

For Tangen, global defence competition will ultimately hinge not on off-the-cuff remarks or technological novelty, but on something more fundamental.

“It will be decided by industrial capacity, economic sustainability and who can produce reliable military capability at scale,” he said.