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© Getty ImagesChina's President Xi Jinping • US President Donald Trump
President Trump signed a bill condemning China's concentration camps for the Uyghur Muslim community just hours after excerpts from former National Security Advisor John Bolton surfaced which claim Trump encouraged Chinese President Xi Jinping to build the camps.

Xi has drawn international criticism for his persecution of China's Muslim Uyghur population, including detaining around 1 to 2 million in concentration camps.

In the excerpt, reported by the Wall Street Journal, Bolton claims that "according to our interpreter, Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps. Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do." He added that Trump called Xi "the greatest Chinese leader in 300 years!"

Shortly after the report, the White House put out a statement that Trump signed the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020, which
"condemns gross human rights violations of specified ethnic Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang region in China and other purposes, including specified authority to impose sanctions on certain foreign persons."
The move was praised by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who introduced the bill and called its signing a "historic step in support of Uyghur Muslims worldwide," but made no mention of Bolton's allegations.

The news of Trump's signing of the bill broke on June 8, just one day after it was reported that Bolton was planning to publish his book in late June.

Reports about the camps paint a picture of harsh, repressive treatment that includes sham trials and 'brainwashing.' Detainees claim they were tortured, including being beaten, starved, and electrocuted. One Uyghur woman says she "begged them to kill me."

Bolton writes that Trump asked him at the 2018 White House Christmas dinner "why we were considering sanctioning China over its treatment of the Uyghurs."

Among the many shocking allegations in the book is one that Trump pleaded with Xi to help him in his reelection bid.
"He then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China's economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he'd win," the book claims. Bolton also called Trump "erratic" and "stunningly uninformed."