President Trump defended his move to slap tariffs on an additional $300 billion worth of Chinese goods by saying that he would be fine if all trade between the U.S. and China came to an end.
The comment Thursday marked a stark escalation in rhetoric between his administration and Beijing following trade talks earlier this week in which neither side budged from their earlier positions.
“For many years China has been taking money out by the hundreds billions of dollars a year. We have rebuilt China so now it is time that we changed things around. If they didn’t want to trade with us anymore that would be fine with me. It would save us a lot of money,” Trump told reporters Thursday.
The U.S. imported $540 billion of Chinese goods in 2018 and exported $120 billion to China.
The president said he believed Chinese President Xi Jinping wanted to make a deal but was dragging his heels and not following through with promises to buy U.S. agricultural goods and crack down on trade in the drug Fentanyl.
The U.S. currently has tariffs of 25% on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods. Trump initially said in a series of tweets Thursday that he would place tariffs of 10% on another $300 billion worth of goods. Later in the day he said the tariff rates could be set at 25% or higher. Trump said China had four weeks to make a deal or the tariffs would go into effect.
Trump had previously threatened to impose the additional 10% tariffs on China following a May breakdown in trade negotiations. Trump said China had to restore concessions it had made earlier in the negotiations, concessions Beijing denied it ever made. Trump put the tariffs on hold following one-on-one talks with Xi in late June during the G-20 Summit in Japan, indicating a cooling-down.
Thursday’s announcement indicated that the talks were breaking down again, with Trump repeating prior accusations against Beijing. “We thought we had a deal with China three months ago, but sadly, China decided to re-negotiate the deal prior to signing,” he tweeted.
