{"id":137175,"date":"2025-05-12T17:14:56","date_gmt":"2025-05-12T17:14:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-latest-us-president-attacks-europe-as-he-hails-china-reset-before-departing-on-pivotal-middle-east-tour-sky-news\/"},"modified":"2025-05-12T17:14:56","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T17:14:56","slug":"trump-latest-us-president-attacks-europe-as-he-hails-china-reset-before-departing-on-pivotal-middle-east-tour-sky-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-latest-us-president-attacks-europe-as-he-hails-china-reset-before-departing-on-pivotal-middle-east-tour-sky-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump latest: US president attacks Europe as he hails China 'reset' before departing on pivotal Middle East tour – Sky News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump has departed for Saudi Arabia this afternoon to begin a major Middle East tour – after his officials and China agreed to slash tariffs in a de-escalation of the countries’ trade war. Listen to the latest episode of Trump 100 – on why the Saudis love Trump – as you scroll.
Monday 12 May 2025 17:08, UK
We’re pausing our coverage.
Donald Trump is now in the air on his way to Saudi Arabia.
We will be back with more coverage once the US president has arrived in Riyadh.
These are the main developments today:
Donald Trump has taken off on his tour of the Middle East.
He flew on Air Force One from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.
The US president is due to arrive in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, at 7.45am UK time tomorrow morning.
Later in the day he will take part in a Saudi state dinner.
Hamas has asked President Trump and his ministers to look for ways to end the war in Gaza.
Edan Alexander – an Israeli soldier who holds American citizenship – has been freed this afternoon.
Hamas said it was releasing Alexander as a goodwill gesture to try to revive talks on ending the war.
The group said it had “demonstrated positivity and high flexibility”.
The Dow Jones stock market index was up by more than 950 points at 4.30pm UK time after the US and China agreed to dramatically cut reciprocal tariffs – by 115%.
Donald Trump said he was beginning a “total reset” with Beijing after discussions in Geneva.
“The talks were very friendly and our relationship is very good,” he said.
“We’re not looking to hurt China. China has been hurt very badly.”
US correspondent James Matthews<\/a> said critics might think Trump was “backing off from a fight” with China and was “losing and losing quickly”.
Matthews pointed out that Trump said the Chinese had agreed to a more open trading arrangement.
The US leader has said he will speak to President Xi Jinping at the end of the week.
Donald Trump’s news conference at the White House has come to an end.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font>
He will now head to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland before flying to Saudi Arabia for his major Middle East tour.
The US leader is expected to arrive in Riyadh at around 7.45am tomorrow.
Benjamin Netanyahu has spoken to Donald Trump today after meeting the US president’s Middle East envoy and ambassador to Israel, the Israeli prime minister’s office said in a statement. 
Netanyahu has thanked Trump for his help with the expected release of Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander, who has been held by Hamas in Gaza, the statement added.
It also said Trump had reiterated his call for close cooperation with Netanyahu.
The US leader is asked about Qatar’s offer to give him a free plane.
In response, he says he has “a lot of respect for the leadership there”.
“I could be a stupid person and say ‘we don’t want a free plane’. But we give free things out and we will take one too,” he says.
“It could help us out because we have a 40-year-old aircraft.”
He explains the money that is spent of the maintenance of Air Force One spend is “astronomical”.
“I think it is a great gesture from Qatar – I appreciate it very much,” he adds.
“I would never be one to turn down that kind of offer. I could be a stupid person and say we don’t want a free plane.”
We reported earlier that Qatar had offered a luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet to Trump.
Donald Trump says he could go to Istanbul, which is where a potential meeting between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin could take place on Thursday.
“I was thinking about flying over there,” he says.
“There is a possibility if I think things can happen.
“We’ve got to get it done.”
He says the US administration is “working very hard to see if it can end the bloodbath”.
He also said he believes Russia will agree to a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine. 
Taking a swipe at the EU, Donald Trump says the US has been “subsidising socialist healthcare systems” for years.
“In Germany and all parts of the EU,” he adds.
“They were the toughest of all. They were nasty. I see that with trade – the EU is in many way nastier than China.”
He says the US has “all the cards” now when it comes to trade.
“They don’t take our products,” he adds.
“So they will have to pay more for healthcare and we will pay less.”
The US leader now moves onto the executive order he will be signing, which will see US drug prices come down between 59% to 90%.
“I don’t think there has been anything signed like this,” he quips.
He says the US “will no longer subsidise the healthcare of other countries”.
“We will bring fairness to America,” he adds.
Be the first to get Breaking News<\/span>
Install the Sky News app for free<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump has departed for Saudi Arabia this afternoon to begin a major Middle East tour – after his officials and China agreed to slash tariffs in a de-escalation of the countries’ trade war. Listen to the latest episode of Trump 100 – on why the Saudis love Trump – as you scroll.Monday 12 May […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":137176,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}