“President Trump said he’d seek such a deal with Presidents Xi and Putin. The comments topped off another one of the free-wheeling press interactions that have become common in Trump’s second term. Such deep cuts in defence spending would fundamentally reshape US military posture around the world and face sharp pushback from US contractors and lawmakers. It’s also far from certain that China or Russia would agree to such cuts given how US defence spending of about $850 billion dwarfs their annual outlays.\”The limited national defence spending … is what is needed to defend its national sovereignty, security and development interests,\” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said Friday when asked about Trump’s remarks in a regular press briefing in Beijing. He added that China was in the middle of a major military expansion and needed to \”safeguard world peace\” in the long-term.\”I want to say, ‘let’s cut our military budget in half,\” Trump said. \”And we can do that. And I think we’ll be able to do it.\””
