President Trump made the offer to Xi Jinping, China’s leader, said David Perdue, the ambassador to China. The White House later said the U.S. had no plans for such a sale.
Page F7From§Eachthe breakfast edition — 28 September 2026
White House denies the China sale Trump just offered to make.
As it ran on the front
On September 18, three senators introduced a bill to block a $5 billion conventional weapons sale to Saudi Arabia, the kind of deal that by law needs a look from Congress before the crates ship. Four days later, on September 22, the president's own financial disclosure landed: 1,156 trades from July, worth between $79 million and $270 million, reshuffled through weapons-makers, oil, and AI stock, the same weapons-makers whose product line a foreign sale would move. Five days after that filing, on September 27, the New York Times reported — citing U.S. Ambassador David Perdue — that the president had offered to sell weapons directly to Xi Jinping. The White House said afterward that no such sale is planned.
Run the filing against the denial and the numbers line up too neatly to call it coincidence. The disclosure shows the trade already made, in July, weeks before the offer became public in September. The denial says no sale is planned. Between a trade already booked and a sale not yet announced sits a position that costs nothing to hold and everything to unwind — the exact size of a stock line that doesn't move if the deal falls through, and moves plenty if it doesn't.…
…(cont) The Saudi deal needed a Senate bill to try to stop it. The China offer needed nothing: no hearing, no committee, no vote, just a table and an ambassador quoting the room afterward. That's the gap, hon — not between what was offered and what was denied, but between the sale that required Congress and the sale that required none.
How many more of these offers land before one of them clears is not a question the filing answers; the filing only tells you what he owned in July. The denial tells you what the White House will call it in September. Neither one tells you what happens to the stock in October.
“They dangled a weapons sale to China, then said never mind — but he's not selling promises, he's sitting on stock in the companies that would fill that order, the same portfolio that reshuffled $270 million in July before any of this hit the press. The Saudi arms deal needs a Senate vote to stop it; the China offer didn't need Congress at all. That's the actual story — not the sale, the void where the vote should be.”
“Look, the President talks tough with foreign leaders all the time, that's called leverage, that's called negotiation — he offers, they don't take it, nothing moves, case closed. And the stock thing, that's disclosed, that's transparency, that's what people wanted, right? The Saudi deal actually needs Congress, this one doesn't even need that, so really this proves the system's working exactly as — actually maybe don't quote me on that last part.”
The receipts
U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue said Sunday that President Trump proposed selling weapons to China during recent meetings with the country’s president Xi Jinping. “President Trump continues to say, ‘Hey, we sell arms to other people around the world,’”
· 'It Should Be Illegal': Trump's 1,156 July Stock Trades Involved AI, Big Oil, Weapons-Makers, and More from the morgue, 22 Sep 2026
· Markey, Merkley, and Sanders Lead Charge Against Trump's $5 Billion Saudi Weapons Deal from the morgue, 18 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.