WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump on Wednesday played down the importance of securing a trade deal with China as he prepared to meet with its president, Xi Jinping, saying he was ready to proceed with additional tariffs if negotiations between the countries failed to get back on track.
Trump said it was “possible” that a deal could ultimately be reached and that China was eager for an agreement. But he said he was prepared to impose tariffs on another $300 billion worth of Chinese products, on top of the 25% tax already in place on $250 billion of Chinese imports. Trump also indicated he might limit the next round of tariffs to just 10%.
“My Plan B is maybe my Plan A,” the president said in an interview with Fox Business Network. “My Plan B is that if we don’t make a deal, I will tariff and maybe not at 25%, but maybe at 10%, but I will tariff the rest of the $600 billion that we’re talking about.”
Trump and Xi are scheduled to discuss the trade tensions Saturday at the Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan. But while both the United States and China are feeling the burden of a bruising trade war, there appears to be little chance of a quick resolution.
In many ways, the ability to strike a deal has gotten harder since talks collapsed in early May, when steady progress toward a trade agreement halted after China rejected America’s demand that the deal be codified in Chinese law. The United States accused China of reneging on previous promises, and both sides have since hardened their positions.
Trump said in the interview on Wednesday that a deal with China was “90%” done before talks collapsed, and that the United States would insist on the same provisions that were previously agreed to, including protections on American intellectual property and measures to open the Chinese market to foreign companies.
In addition to preparing to impose tariffs on more Chinese goods, the United States has increased pressure by trying to cut the telecommunications firm Huawei and other Chinese companies off from American components in an effort to severely damage their ability to operate.
China has responded by imposing its own higher tariffs on goods from the United States. Beijing has also said it would draw up its own blacklist of U.S. companies that it viewed as “unreliable,” a move meant to retaliate against the United States for cutting Chinese companies off from U.S. technology. -- NYT
