America just offered to sell weapons to China and Taiwan is the bargaining chip

America's own ambassador to China just said something wild on live TV.

David Perdue says Donald Trump asked Xi Jinping if China wanted to buy American weapons.

This happened during Xi Jinping's state visit to Washington. He was there for three days, from 22 to 23 September through 25 to 26 September.

Perdue said it two days ago, on Fox News Sunday, talking to host Shannon Bream.

Here's the quote. David Perdue says quote "He actually asked President Xi would he like to buy some at one point."

So the US Ambassador to China just said, on television, that the American president offered to sell weapons to China.

And that is a huge deal. Here's why.

China has been under a US arms embargo for 37 years. It started after the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre.

And for 47 years, American law has said the opposite about Taiwan. The Taiwan Relations Act legally requires the US to sell Taiwan the weapons it needs to defend itself.

So offering arms to Beijing instead is not some small tweak. It cuts against decades of US policy.

Perdue says Trump also told him there are ongoing talks about other sales, and that he and Xi Jinping bring it up every time they meet. Perdue says the US position on Taiwan hasn't changed.

But look at the timeline. It gets harder to believe.

Go back a few months. At a summit in Beijing, Trump called a paused $14 billion Taiwan arms package a strong card to play against China. That package is still paused now.

So back then, Taiwan's weapons were something Trump could hold back to strike a deal with China.

Now, according to his own ambassador, he's offering China weapons directly.

That's not the same policy anymore. That's the same policy, one step further.

And it's not happening on its own. Around nine months ago, Trump approved an $11.1 billion arms sale to Taiwan. Perdue says that's more than any US president has sold Taiwan since 1979.