Donald Trump: President Xi Jinping is a world-class ‘poker player’

Donald Trump, while speaking to reporters during a joint press conference in the Oval Office with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, stated that Kim Jong Un had become inflexible to negotiate with US after he visited China earlier in May this year.

By: Express Web Desk | New Delhi | Updated: May 23, 2018 10:22:56 am

US President Donald Trump called his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping a master ‘poker player’, indicating that Beijing may have influenced the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s attitude in talks with the United States of America, reported Newsweek. This development comes in backdrop of the historic summit scheduled to take place between US and North Korea on June 12.

Trump, while speaking to media persons in a joint press conference in the Oval Office with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, stated that Kim Jong-un had become inflexible to negotiate with US after he visited China earlier in May this year.

During the press briefing, Trump was quoted as saying by Newsweek, “I think there was a change in attitude from Kim Jong Un after his meeting with Xi. There was a difference after Kim Jong Un left China the second time. President Xi is a world class poker player. Maybe nothing happened, I’m not blaming anybody. But there was a different attitude from the North Korean folks after that second meeting.”

US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. (Source: AP)

In the meantime, US continues to prepare for the summit between Trump and Kim Jong-un, the White House has said, amidst uncertainty swirling around the meeting. North Korea, however, has threatened to cancel the meeting over a joint US-South Korea military exercise. The US has said it was going ahead with the preparation.

“We continue to prepare for the summit, and if they want to meet, we will certainly be ready,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters at her daily news conference yesterday. “President Trump rightly stated that if North Korea agrees to denuclearise, that it can be a bright future for them. But we remain clear-eyed in these negotiations, but we continue to prepare, and we’ll see what happens,” she said.

(with inputs from agencies)

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