President Donald Trump will not discuss the alleged Chinese spy scandal that precipitated the downfall of former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang with Chinese President Xi Jinping when he meets with him twice during his trip next week to Asia.
A senior administration official told reporters on Friday that “the situation with Nvidia should not really have any bearing on the trip.”
“In all of our discussions and negotiations with the Chinese, we do not negotiate American export controls,” the source said. “These are national security matters that we develop in the administration and interagency process.”
When asked whether Trump would raise the allegations regarding former Megaspeed International executive Alice Huang, with whom Jensen Huang had an extramarital affair, being a Chinese intelligence asset as she used her Singapore-based cloud-computing firm to avoid the U.S.’s restrictions on Nvidia selling its advanced chips to China, an official said that “the focus” of the Trump-Xi meeting is “going to be about implementation of the trade agreement.”
“When it comes to some of these national security matters, and examinations, and investigations that are going on in the U.S., it’s probably not something that we’re going to read the Chinese in on at this moment,” the person said. “I don’t expect the president to raise it, the Alice Huang issue, as of right now.”
Trump is scheduled to travel to Manila, the Philippines, on Monday for a four-day trip to Asia, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit, before flying to Shenzhen, China for its Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation counterpart.
His itinerary in Manila on Tuesday includes a sit down with the Quad alliance and signing a trade deal with Thailand, in addition to an ASEAN leaders meeting and dinner, before a welcome ceremony, a bilateral, and lunch with the Filipino president on Wednesday.
Later that day he is then anticipated to travel to Shenzhen, China for an APEC leaders dinner before their meeting on Thursday, as well as a sit down and lunch with Xi. That is before his historic trilateral with Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump has repeated his desire for the three countries to ink a nuclear proliferation deal, but senior administration officials “do not expect to… get to any kind of agreement” next week.
“This is the entry point, the first conversation, certainly at the leader level,” the source said.
The official added that Trump “does intend to talk about Iran in the trilateral meeting” and that the president “has said actually that he does not intend to talk about Ukraine.”
“We have a whole other track that you’re aware of where we’ve had many meetings recently with the Russians,” the person said. “China’s not really a part of that track, so it doesn’t seem appropriate to have the Ukraine discussion there.”
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Senior administration officials also confirmed that despite the controversy surrounding Jensen Huang and his trip to China with Trump, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk will accompany the president to Shenzhen, continuing that Musk “has tremendous business interests in the U.S.-China relationship” and “he’s a big part of our national security.”
Officials, too, confirmed that no meeting will take place between Trump and North Korea leader Kim Jong Un during this trip.