Trump refutes claims of offering to sell arms to China

US President Donald Trump disputes earlier remarks by Ambassador to China David Perdue that Trump asked

Chinese President Xi Jinping if he wanted to buy American weapons.

Trump says Perdue was confusing China with Taiwan.

“I never heard of that one. I'm going to have to ask him, you mean, we're going to sell?

No, they'd probably like to buy it, because we do make better equipment than them,

so maybe it's a good idea. But we didn't discuss it. They may have been talking about Taiwan.

I think he was probably talking about Taiwan.”

During the same Oval office briefing, Trump announces a new 15-billion-US-dollar

steel plant in Iowa that he says will be the largest in the nation.

He says American cannot "call up another nation," specifically naming China,

for steel to build "2000 army tanks" and reinforce the US' "very powerful" military.