New trade talks in sight as Trump-Xi meeting closes

In this image provided by the U.S. Navy, the guided-missile destroyer USS Porter (DDG 78) launches a tomahawk land attack missile in the Mediterranean Sea, Friday, April 7, 2017.

Trump told Xi about the missile attack as the two heads of state finished dinner on Thursday evening.

Assad “may think he has the same option he took in September 2013: set the chemicals to the side and return to barrel bombs, gravity bombs, artillery shells, missiles, and mortar rounds against civilians in their homes, hospitals, marketplaces, and schools”, Hof said in a post on the Atlantic Council’s website.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has clashed with the Trump administration over how to battle the Islamic State in Syria but is an opponent of Mr. Assad’s, also expressed support for Thursday night’s strikes.

President Trump has chose to hold the meeting at a luxurious resort. In the wake of President Obama’s 2013 failure to follow up on his “red line” warning about the use of chemical weapons, plenty of friends and foes around the world started questioning USA credibility.

“Saudi Arabia fully supports the USA military operations against military targets in Syria, which were a response to the regime’s use of chemical weapons against innocent civilians”, a Foreign Ministry official said, according to the Saudi Press Agency.

“His repeated use of chemical weapons and his crimes against his own population had to be sanctioned”. As this week’s bombing in Idlib proved beyond doubt, some of those stockpiles remained.

“Sen. Tim Kaine came out swinging Friday morning against President Donald Trump, hours after a late-night order from Trump initiated missile strikes against a Syrian air base after a fatal chemical attack on Syrian civilians”.

“It was a slow and brutal death for so many”, Trump said of the Khan Sheikhoun atrocity. He spoke via WhatApp message.

Like Russia, Iran is an ally of Assad’s regime. “It’s an honour to have you in the United States”. The U.S is also leading an worldwide coalition against Daesh militants in Syria.

Syrian state TV lambasted Thursday’s attack as “American aggression”, providing no further details.

Just before the briefing, however, Spicer gave an interview to Fox News in which he discussed the Syria strike.

Despite the intervention of the Syrian missile strikes, Xi got what he wanted from the trip, analysts said. He can do whatever he wants because Trump isn’t serious about Syria. Back in Washington, Vice President Mike Pence was in the White House situation room, along with Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and Deputy CIA Director Gina Haspel.

Trump previously disapproved of intervening into Syria while he was on the campaign trail, AP reported. However, Tillerson was separately quoted as saying that steps are “underway” to assemble an worldwide coalition against Assad. Russia, which has military forces in Syria aiding Assad’s government, says the deaths were caused by a gas leak from a depot where rebel groups stored chemical weapons, a charge the rebels deny and USA intelligence officials say is false. “He thought he could get away with it because he knew Russian Federation had his back”.

What is certain is that the Trump administration is taking a more aggressive approach throughout the region. Yet this is the second straight US junket where he’s been forced to play second fiddle.