Trump begged Chinese President Xi Jinping to help him win re-election, Bolton says

(Image credit: Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)

published 17 June 2020

In his forthcoming book, The Room Where It Happened, former National Security Adviser John Bolton reportedly writes, "I am hard pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn't driven by re-election calculations."

President Trump was so focused on remaining in office, Bolton alleges, that he "stunningly" pleaded with Chinese President Xi Jinping to purchase a lot of American agricultural products like soybeans and wheat to boost his approval in states with a large population of farmers so he could "ensure he'd win."

In an excerpt published in The Wall Street Journal, Bolton states that Xi, in the middle of flattering Trump during a dinner in Buenos Aires, Argentina, last year, said he wanted to work with Trump for six more years as the sides hashed out a trade agreement. Xi reportedly told Trump the U.S. had too many elections, to which Trump apparently nodded along approvingly, adding that some people were saying the U.S.'s two-term presidential limit should be repealed for him. Read more at The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.

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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.

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