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Jonathan Swan, author of Sneak Peek
In an Oval Office interview on Friday afternoon,President Trump told me that he held off on imposing Treasury sanctions against Chinese officials involved with the Xinjiang mass detention camps because doing so would have interfered with his trade deal with Beijing.
Driving the news: Asked why he hadn’t yet enacted Treasury sanctions against Chinese Communist Party officials or entities tied to the camps where the Chinese government detains Uighurs and other Muslim minorities, Trump replied, “Well, we were in the middle of a major trade deal.”
“And I made a great deal, $250 billion potentially worth of purchases. And by the way, they’re buying a lot, you probably have seen.
“Trump continued: “And when you’re in the middle of a negotiation and then all of a sudden you start throwing additional sanctions on — we’ve done a lot. I put tariffs on China, which are far worse than any sanction you can think of.”
The big picture: China hawks in the Trump administration have privately expressed frustration that the president hasn’t used the Global Magnitsky Act to sanction Chinese officials for what many consider one of the worst human rights atrocities of this era.
Trump countered that he signed the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020 on Wednesday.
etween the lines: But that new law is Congress’ attempt to pressure Trump to enact sanctions. Trump already had all the authority he needed to sanction China for the camps. Congress passed the Global Magnitsky Act in 2016 — a law designed to counter human rights violations like those being committed in Xinjiang, where witnesses say the Chinese government imprisons, brainwashes, and tortures ethnic and religious minorities.
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By Kristen Holmes, CNN White House Correspondent
Updated 0143 GMT (0943 HKT) June 22, 2020
(CNN)President Donald Trump said he waited on imposing sanctions on Chinese officials involved in mass detention camps to avoid interfering with his China trade deal.
Trump said in an interview with Axios that the reason he had not retaliated against Chinese Communist Party Officials or companies over Beijing’s internment camps that are used to hold Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities was so as not to upset negotiations.
“Well, we were in the middle of a major trade deal. And I made a great deal, $250 billion potentially worth of purchases,” the President told Axios on Friday, adding, “And when you’re in the middle of a negotiation and then all of a sudden you start throwing additional sanctions on — we’ve done a lot. I put tariffs on China, which are far worse than any sanction you can think of.”
Last week, Trump’s former national security adviser claimed Trump told Chinese President Xi Jinping he should continue to build concentration camps to hold Uyghurs. The same day, the President signed a bill aiming to punish China for its human rights abuses against the Uyghur Muslim population.
For more:
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/21/politics/trump-sanctions-china-uyghurs-detention-camps-trade-deal/index.html
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