China is going to open its policy, says Trump on trade talks with Beijing

If the Chinese economy was in trouble, it was only because of him, Trump said

In a major policy shift, China is "going to open" up the entire country, US President Donald Trump said Thursday amidst trade negotiations with the Chinese.

"I just see this in the front page of The Wall Street Journal which just came out. China is going to open its policy, a big policy shift. They are going to open the whole country, that they want to please President Trump, that they want to do things that they have to do and that people should have been after China for years, I mean frankly," Trump told Fox News in an interview.

Trump last met his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Buenos Aires on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit in Argentina on November 30 and December 1. Following the dinner summit, the two leaders decided to give themselves 90 days' time to hammer out a trade deal that addresses the concerns of the United States with regard to trade balance and intellectual property thefts.

Top officials from the two countries started the talks this Monday.

"I have established a fantastic relationship with President Xi, who is the head of China, the absolute head of China, and I think we are going to work a fantastic deal for both countries, but a fantastic deal for us. We are going to get China to open up," Trump said in response to a question from Fox News.

If the Chinese economy was in trouble, it was only because of him, he said.

"That is the only reason it is in trouble, because I have placed billions and billions -- we have taken in USD 11 billion worth of taxes that I taxed China. (In the past) We have not made any money with China; we lost money with China," he said.

"In the last four months, we have taken in almost USD 11 billion of taxes. Nobody has ever heard of that. Nobody knows that. People do not report on that, they only report on nonsense," said the US president.

Asked why was he so confident about his deal with China, Trump said he knew what he was doing.

"I know what I am doing. I mean, it is business. Nobody ever went to China and said, 'Listen, you are stealing our intellectual property. You are doing all sorts of things that are wrong. You are taking out of our country USD 500 billion a year, not trillion, not million, you are USD 500 billion away, you cannot do it. You cannot take USD 500 billion out of our country," he said in response to a question.