Trump accuses China of meddling in midterms, citing Iowa newspaper ad

Pressed for evidence, president points to advertisement openly funded by China as foreign minister denies accusation

Donald Trump has accused China of seeking to interfere in US congressional elections in November, using his chairmanship of the UN security council to spring a surprise on his fellow world leaders.

Asked for proof, the president later cited a Chinese-funded newspaper advertisement in Iowa, a battleground state in the congressional campaign, that the Chinese government had paid for, lobbying against his trade policies.

Administration officials – who also appeared to have been taken unawares by the allegation – were able to give few other supporting details, and pointed instead to repressive actions by the Chinese government to suppress domestic dissent. The surprise claim created a short-lived storm, temporarily diverting attention from Wednesday’s security council session, which underlined Trump’s isolation at the UN over his Iran policies.

At the start of Wednesday’s meeting – whose ostensible purpose was to discuss the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction – Trump said: “China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election.”

The US president did not mention Russia, which US intelligence agencies say interfered in Trump’s favour during the 2016 presidential elections – and see as the prime outside threat to the 2018 midterm vote in November.

Trump has long rejected that conclusion, and instead portrayed himself as a victim of election meddling, this time from Beijing.

“They don’t want me or us to win because I am the first president to ever challenge China on trade,” Trump said. “We don’t want them to interfere in our upcoming election.”

The Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, rejected what he described as “unwarranted accusations” against Beijing.

“China has all along followed the principle of non-interference,” Wang said. “We did not and will not interfere in any country’s domestic affairs. We refuse to accept any unwarranted accusations against China.”

China’s state-controlled media was more direct, saying if the country had been successful in influencing elections, the US would not have slapped billions of dollars in tariffs on Chinese goods.

“If their presidential seat can be determined by outside forces, then other countries wouldn’t have to deal with US suppression or sanctions,” said an editorial in the Global Times, a tabloid affiliated with the Communist party mouthpiece People’s Daily. “Judging from the recent hardline reactions toward China, it is unlikely that congressional leaders and the president have been turned into puppets by international hackers or businessmen.”

“It would be best if Trump could assert a level of caution when speaking at UN headquarters,” the paper added. “Fabricated stories and slogans designed to trick American voters will not have the same effect with UN members.”

Asked for evidence at a press conference on Wednesday evening, Trump said: “We have evidence. It will come out.”

Pressed further by journalists, Trump pointed to a four-page insert in the Des Moines Register, paid for openly by the state-run China Daily, which argued Trump’s tariff-based trade policies would hurt Iowan soybean farmers, making it harder for them to export to China.

A commentary in the special section said the farmers were suffering because of the “the fruit of a president’s folly”.

“They have ads that are like editorials,” Trump said.

Iowa is a key battleground in the struggle for control of Congress.

During a press briefing, a US official also spoke about restrictions on the press and on free speech in China, but did not explain how those issues were linked to interference in elections.

Asked at the press conference in New York how Xi could remain his friend given the hike in tensions, Trump indicated that he preferred to be respected than liked. “He may not be a friend of mine any more but I think he probably respects me,” said the president, who said the US economy was easily weathering the impact of the trade dispute.

The lack of details in the hastily arranged briefings raised questions of whether Trump had once more taken his own advisers by surprise, at a time when the president’s campaign is under investigation for possible collusion with the Kremlin in the 2016 presidential vote.

Trump has made similar allegations in the past: in September he tweeted that China was “actively trying to impact and change our election by attacking our farmers, ranchers and industrial workers because of their loyalty to me”.

That tweet came a day after the US president intensified his trade war with Beijing by imposing new tariffs of $200bn on Chinese goods arriving in the US.

The unexpected accusation against China was an aside in Trump’s opening statement to the security council. Most of it was a litany of allegations about Iran, which his administration has been seeking to isolate since Trump pulled the US out of a 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran, in which Iran accepted strict curbs on its nuclear programme.

However, almost every one of the other 14 countries represented on the council spoke up in support of the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Programme of Action (JCPOA), including close US allies, emphasising US isolation on the issue.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said the JCPOA was “imperfect but a decisive step” towards ensuring Iran did not acquire nuclear weapons. To prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, Macron said, the international community had to have “a long-term strategy, not just sanctions and containment”.

Theresa May congratulated Trump for his diplomacy with Kim Jong-un aimed ultimately at dismantling North Korea’s nuclear weapons, but she pointedly added that “non-proliferation also required multilateral leadership”. The British prime minister said that the JCPOA was an “important step forward” adding that the UK was committed to preserving the agreement as long as Iran continued to abide by the agreement.

Russia and its foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, also found themselves embattled on the council. Almost every other leader around the its C-shaped table had strong criticism for Russia for its role in shielding the Assad regime in Damascus from concerted UN investigation and action for the use of chemical weapons in Syria, and for the nerve agent attack in the UK aimed at a former Russian spy in Salisbury.

Lavrov rejected the criticism, calling the evidence of Syrian chemical weapon use “unfounded allegations” and claiming that the UK had something to hide in the Salisbury investigation.