Trump says ball in China’s court on tariffs
AFP :
Donald Trump believes it is up to China to come to the negotiating table on trade, the White House said on Tuesday, after the US president accused Beijing of reneging on a major Boeing deal.
“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,” said a statement from Trump read out by Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
“There’s no difference between China and any other country except they are much larger,” she told a briefing.
Leavitt’s comments came after Trump said China had “reneged” on a major deal with US aviation giant Boeing. This followed a Bloomberg news report that Beijing ordered airlines not to take further deliveries of the company’s jets.
Trump has slapped new tariffs on friend and foe since returning to the presidency this year but has reserved his heaviest blows for China – imposing additional 145% levies on many Chinese imports.
China on Wednesday said its economy grew a forecast-beating 5.4% in the first quarter as exporters rushed to get goods out of factory gates ahead of the US levies.
Senior official Sheng Laiyun from China’s National Bureau of Statistics said the US tariffs “will put certain pressures on our country’s foreign trade and economy”.
Hong Kong’s postal service said meanwhile it will stop shipping goods bound for the United States in response to Trump’s “bullying” tariffs.
Trump has scrapped the “de minimis” exemption, which allowed goods valued under $800 to enter without duties or certain taxes, a rule which helped the rapid growth of Chinese-founded online retailers Shein and Temu.
Japan’s envoy for tariff talks slated for later on Wednesday in Washington said meanwhile that he was optimistic of a “win-win” outcome for both countries.
Ryosei Akazawa, who was due to meet US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, said he would “protect our national interest”.
South Korea, another major exporter in particular of semiconductors and cars, said that Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok would meet Bessent next week.
“The current priority is to use negotiations… to delay the imposition of reciprocal tariffs as much as possible and to minimise uncertainty for Korean companies operating not only in the US but also in global markets,” Choi said Tuesday.
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen told German weekly Die Zeit that the European Union was “setting out our position clearly, and the Americans are doing the same.”
Ottawa on Tuesday offered automakers tariff relief if they maintain production in Canada, fearing a flight of the key manufacturing sector to the United States.
Trump took aim at Beijing again on Tuesday, saying on Truth Social that China did not fulfill its commitments under an earlier trade deal. He appeared to be referencing a pact that marked a truce in both sides’ escalating tariff war during his first term.
The US president said China bought only “a portion of what they agreed to buy,” charging that Beijing had “zero respect” for his predecessor Joe Biden’s administration.