U.S. President Donald Trump took the opportunity on Friday to say that a long-negotiated trade deal with China is "potentially very close."
The beleaguered Trump was speaking on one of his favorite television programs, "Fox and Friends," the morning after House Democrats wrapped up a second week of public impeachment hearings.
“The bottom line is," he told the network, "we have a very good chance to make a deal."
But while both sides want to work out an agreement, Trump said he is, in his words, "not anxious" to hash one out, claiming that the U.S. benefits from tariffs on Chinese imports.
The so-called "phase-one" deal with China has yet to be completed, even though Trump announced that the two economic superpowers had come to a "very substantial phase-one deal" more than a month earlier.
Trump also took a bow, claiming in the nearly hour-long television interview that "thousands of people would have been killed in Hong Kong" if not for him, because Chinese President Xi Jinping would not want to ruin the ongoing trade talks.
