Donald Trump has openly stated that the United States spies on China, a rare on-the-record admission from a sitting American president. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump defended the practice as routine and reciprocal, dismissing suggestions that China holds any technological advantage.
Donald Trump says US spies ‘like hell’ on China
The admission happened when Trump was asked whether he had confronted Xi Jinping about cyberattacks targeting the United States. He replied, “I did. And he talked about attacks we did in China. You know, what they do, we do too. We spy like hell on them, too.”
He went on to describe a conversation in which he claimed to have surprised the president with the scale of undisclosed US activity. “I told him, ‘We do a lot of stuff to you that you don’t know about,'” Trump recounted. When a reporter sought further clarification, Trump confirmed the subject was intelligence gathering. “I’m talking about spying. The question was asked of me yesterday, I guess, ‘What about the fact that China is spying?’ I said, ‘Well, it’s one of those things because we spy like hell on them, too.'”
The discussion also touched on whether China could be embedding harmful code inside American infrastructure. Trump acknowledged the possibility while again pointing to the counter-measures. “You don’t know that,” he said. “I’d like to see it, but it’s very possible that they do. And we’re doing things to them. I told them, ‘We do a lot of stuff to you that you don’t know about, and you are doing stuff to us that we probably do know about.'” He added, “But we do plenty. It’s a double-edged sword.”
While the president appeared unfazed by the threat of spying, his team on the ground took a decidedly more cautious approach. The New York Post reported that officials removed all badges and pins given by Chinese authorities from journalists before they boarded the plane. Those items, along with burner phones used by staff, were collected in a bin at the bottom of the steps. “Nothing from China allowed on the plane.”
Originally reported by Devanshi Basu on Mandatory
