A container ship docked at the Yangshan Deepwater Port in Shanghai, China. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg.
Yesterday, President Donald Trump called on China to reach out to him in order to kick off negotiations aimed at resolving the escalating trade fight between the world’s two largest economies.
“The ball is in China’s court. China needs to make a deal with us. We don’t have to make a deal with them,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday, reading what she said was a statement Trump dictated. “There’s no difference between China and any other country except they are much larger, and China wants what we have, what every country wants, what we have—the American consumer—or, to put another way, they need our money,” the statement continued.
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The comments are a fresh sign that the United States and China are continuing to dig in their heels, indicating there is no end in sight to the fight that has seen both sides raise trade barriers to staggering levels.
When asked about the U.S.’s stance at a regular press briefing in Beijing on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said that “if the U.S. truly wants to resolve the issue through dialogue and negotiation, it should stop using maximum pressure and stop threats and blackmail.”
“For any dialogue to happen, it must be based on equality, respect, and mutual benefit,” Lin added.
China ordered airlines not to take further deliveries of Boeing Co. jets, according to people familiar with the matter. This marked Beijing’s latest move to retaliate against Trump’s decision to hike levies to as high as 145 percent on Chinese goods. The U.S. president criticized China in a social media post earlier Tuesday, saying the Chinese government “just reneged on the big Boeing deal” signed during his first administration.
The Trump administration has said it is negotiating with dozens of other trading partners to lower trade barriers in exchange for relief on higher tariffs the U.S. president imposed on them. Duties above 10 percent on goods from nations other than China were paused for 90 days on April 10 to allow time for talks. Trump is considering at least 15 proposals and has made it clear to his trade team that “he wants to personally sign off on all of these deals,” Leavitt said. “There’s a lot of work to do. We very much understand that, but we do believe that we can announce some deals very soon,” the press secretary added, without specifying which nations were close to reaching agreements.
But the United States and China thus far have not engaged at a high level, with both nations trading insults and ratcheting tariffs higher. China announced Friday that it will apply a 125 percent tariff to all U.S. goods, the latest escalation that started on April 2 when Trump imposed a 34 percent duty on Chinese imports. The U.S. president raised those duties higher each time China announced its own measures in response. The White House has also insisted that China must reach out first to start talks, while Beijing has indicated it’s not clear about the United States’ demands.
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