Former National Security Adviser John Bolton claimed in his soon-to-be-released tell-all book that President Donald Trump tried to solicit help in the 2020 election from Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
According to a copy obtained by CNN on Wednesday, during last year’s G-20 summit, Trump discussed the upcoming election with Jinping, stressing “the importance of farmers and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome.”
Bolton said after the conversation changed back to trade policy, Trump “proposed that for the remaining $350 billion of trade imbalances, the US would not impose tariffs, but he again returned to importuning Xi to buy as many American farm products as China could.”
The U.S. leader also addressed concerns of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in China, as Uyghur Muslims are being detained in concentration camps for their beliefs.
“At the opening dinner of the Osaka G-20 meeting in June 2019, with only interpreters present, Xi had explained to Trump why he was basically building concentration camps in Xinjiang. According to our interpreter, Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do,” Bolton wrote. “The National Security Council’s top Asia staffer, Matthew Pottinger, told me that Trump said something very similar during his November 2017 trip to China.”
According to the U.S. State Department, more than one million Uyghur Muslims have been detained in internment camps by the Chinese government where they are reportedly “subjected to torture, cruel and inhumane treatment such as physical and sexual abuse, forced labor, and death.”
Bolton also claimed that during the summit’s trade talks, Trump complimented Jinping, calling him the greatest in China’s history. Bolton says the flattery came from a place of political ambition, rather than sincerity or policy.
“I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my White House tenure that wasn’t driven by reelection calculations,” Bolton wrote.
Trump denied Bolton’s allegations Wednesday, telling the Wall Street Journal that “he is a liar” and “everybody in the White House hated John Bolton.”
The publication of the book, titled The Room Where It Happened, is set for June 23 amid a fierce legal battle.
The White House has tried to block its publication, claiming it contains classified information that could risk national security. In a lawsuit Tuesday, the Trump administration argued that Bolton’s book additionally broke non-disclosure agreements.
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