President-elect sent tweets hours after Mike Pence tried to downplay possibility that Trump could threaten diplomatic rift with Beijing through actions last week

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

President-elect Donald Trump railed against China on Sunday, only hours after his transition team denied that his call with Taiwan’s president signaled a new US policy toward Pacific power.

“Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into their country (the US doesn’t tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea?” he tweeted. “I don’t think so!”

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Earlier on Sunday the vice-president-elect, Mike Pence, had tried to downplay the possibility that Trump could threaten a diplomatic rift with Beijing through his actions last week. Trump’s 10-minute phone conversation on Friday with Tsai Ing-wen – thought to be the first time a US president or president-elect has spoken to a Taiwanese leader since 1979 – and subsequent reference to Tsai as “president” threatened such a breach, and implied he might be making up policy on the hoof.

In damage control mode, Pence sought to dismiss the row as “a tempest in a teapot”, contrasting it with Barack Obama’s rapprochement with communist Cuba.

“He received a courtesy call from the democratically elected president of Taiwan,” Pence told ABC’s This Week. “They reached out to offer congratulations as leaders around the world have and he took the call, accepted her congratulations and good wishes and it was precisely that.”

Later, in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, Pence again used the term “the president of Taiwan”, suggesting it was no slip of the tongue.

China views self-ruling Taiwan as part of its own territory awaiting reunification, and any US move implying support for independence – including use of the word “president” – is likely to offend Beijing.

Chinese state media said Trump’s “inexperience” led him to accept the phone call but warned that any breach of the “one China” stance would “destroy” relations with America.

Asked by ABC host George Stephanopoulos if he understood China’s objections, Pence replied: “Yes, of course.” But he quickly shifted gear to claim that the American people find Trump’s “energy” refreshing.

The Indiana governor was asked directly if there were implications for the “one China” policy. “We’ll deal with policy after 20 January,” he said, referring to the day of Trump’s inauguration.

On NBC, Pence suggested the controversy had been overplayed. “The waters here seem like a little bit of a tempest in a teapot,” he said.

“I mean, it’s striking to me that President Obama would reach out to a murdering dictator in Cuba and be hailed as a hero. And President-elect Donald Trump takes a courtesy call from the democratically elected president of Taiwan and it becomes something of a thing in the media.”

Other Trump surrogates sought to neutralise the issue. Speaking on Fox News Sunday, senior aide Kellyanne Conway said her boss was “well aware” of Washington’s “one China” policy.

“I know China has a perspective on it,” she said. “The White House and state department probably have a perspective on it. Certainly Taiwan has a perspective on it.

“The president-elect’s perspective is he accepted a congratulatory call. When he’s sworn in as commander-in-chief, he’ll make clear the fullness of his plans. But people shouldn’t read too much into it.”

Since his stunning victory over Hillary Clinton on 8 November, Trump has accepted congratulatory calls from dozens of world leaders including the prime ministers or presidents of Israel, Singapore, Japan and China, Conway said.

Speaking at the Brookings Institution in Washington on Sunday afternoon, Secretary of State John Kerry said it would be “valuable” to Trump if he took advice from state officials before such calls. Speaking to reporters at Trump Tower, however, Conway said the president-elect was “not really a talking points kind of guy”.

There were also signs of uncertainty over Trump’s choice of secretary of state. The transition team has previously said the short list was down to four – understood to be Tennessee senator Bob Corker, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, former CIA director Gen David Petraeus and Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who was the 2012 Republican nominee for president.

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On Sunday, Conway told reporters “he’s broadened the search” and the “list is expanding”, and added: “More than four but who knows how many finalists there will be. It’s a big decision and nobody should rush through it.”

Petraeus appeared on ABC in what some observers billed as an audition for the cross-examination he could expect from Congress over his conviction for mishandling classified material.

Petraeus pleaded guilty last year to a misdemeanour charge after sharing intelligence with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, a former army officer with whom he had an extramarital affair.

“What I would say to them is what I’ve acknowledged for a number of years,” he said. “Five years ago, I made a serious mistake. I acknowledged it. I apologised for it. I paid a very heavy price for it and I’ve learned from it.”

Petraeus added that he has given more than 38 years of “in some cases unique service to our country in uniform and then at the CIA”.

Reflecting on his hour-long meeting with Trump last week, Petraeus, speaking from Germany, said he found the president-elect to be “quite pragmatic” and added: “What I enjoyed most, frankly, was the discussion of issues, if you will, or campaign rhetoric, and placing that in a strategic context.”

Petraeus’s viability for the job was put to Pence, who insisted that despite Trump’s attacks on Hillary Clinton over her own carelessness with classified emails while secretary of state, the former military leader was an “American hero” and still in contention.

“He paid a price for mishandling classified information,” he said on NBC. “I think the president-elect will weigh that against the background of an extraordinary career of military service.

“It will be the president-elect’s decision about the totality of Gen Petraeus’s experience and background.”

Stephanopoulos also grilled Pence over Trump’s evidence-free claim that “millions of people voted illegally”, denying him victory in the popular vote in the presidential election, in which Clinton leads by more than 2.5m ballots.

The host made 10 different attempts, through questions or interventions, to make Pence admit the claim was groundless.

Stephanopoulos asked: “It’s his right to make false statements?”

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Pence replied: “Well, it’s his right to express his opinion as president-elect of the United States. I think one of the things that’s refreshing about our president-elect and one of the reasons why I think he made such an incredible connection with people all across this country is because he tells you what’s on his mind.”

Stephanopoulos shot back: “But why is it refreshing to make false statements?”

Maintaining his cool, Pence said: “Look, I don’t know that that is a false statement, George, and neither do you. The simple fact is that ...”

Stephanopoulos interrupted: “I know there’s no evidence for it.”

At the end of the exchange, Pence insisted: “He’s going to say what he believes to be true and I know that he’s always going to speak in that way as president.”

In another series of tweets early on Sunday, Trump threatened heavy taxes as retribution for US companies that move their business operations overseas and still try to sell their product to Americans.

He promised a 35% tax on products sold inside the US by any business that fired American workers and built a new factory or plant in another country.