Trump's visit 'boosted business'

The Chinese consul general in Houston, Li Qiangmin, has seen many economic benefits resulting from US President Donald Trump's trip to China last week.

Li spoke of the opportunities being brought into the southern United States by China and a stable relationship between the countries.

"At least three among the 29 companies (that) headed to China with President Trump are from Texas," Li told the luncheon guests, who included state Representative Gene Wu, Houston City Council Member Greg Travis, Greater Houston Partnership CEO Bob Harvey, businessman Neil Bush, US China Partnership Chairman Charles Foster, diplomats from the consulate corps of Houston and other prominent business and community leaders.

Cheniere Energy, based in Houston, is the owner of the first liquefied natural gas export terminal in the US. It signed a memorandum of understanding with China National Petroleum Corp for long-term LNG sales and purchase cooperation.

Bell Helicopter signed an agreement with Reignwood International Investment Group to sell an additional 50 Bell 505s helicopters to China.

Li said that high-level exchanges are frequent among Southern US states and China. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner will visit China soon. The mayors of Austin and Dallas have recently visited China.

"Governor (Asa) Hutchinson of Arkansas has visited China three times since he took office. He said to me that he will visit China every year during his term. He has already got great rewards. Several Chinese companies have invested or declared to invest more than $1.4 billion, with 1,500 jobs in Arkansas since 2015," Li said.

"It makes perfect sense for US companies to work with Chinese companies. There is a lot of money to be made on both sides. It's a win-win situation," Jon Taylor, professor of political science at University of St. Thomas, said of Trump's visit to China.

"A lot of economic agreements made will really pay off in five years or so."

Strong ties expected

Bush expressed his wish for strong ties between the US and China: "My father (former US president George H.W. Bush) has always maintained that the US-China relationship is the most important relationship in the world.

"Now that China is becoming the second-largest economy of the world, we need to find ways to put my father's legacy and interest to work so that the two greatest economies in the world can work together to apply our resources and talent to solve the global issues."

On Tuesday, Trump said he had done "a really fantastic job" on a five-nation tour of Asia in which he had made a lot of friends.

The US president, who began his journey in Japan 12 days ago, said his trip had seen progress in his goal of narrowing the country's trade deficits.

"I've made a lot of friends at the highest level," Trump said, adding the trip was "tremendously successful".

"I think the fruits of our labor are going to be incredible," he said, later predicting an already unveiled $300 billion worth of trade deals "is going to be quadrupled very quickly" to more than $1 trillion.

He offered no evidence for this assessment.

"It's been a really great 12 days," he said. "I think we have done a really fantastic job."

AFP contributed to this story.

mayzhou@chinadailyusa.com

(China Daily 11/16/2017 page11)