United States President Donald Trump has said the US is meeting with many countries, including China, on trade deals.
Trump also insisted that his main priority with China was to secure a fair trade deal.
Speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said that he had no plans to speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week, but US officials were speaking with Chinese officials about a variety of different things.
When asked if any trade agreements would be announced this week, Trump said that could “very well be”; but gave no details.
Trump’s top officials are said to have engaged in a flurry of meetings with trading partners since the president on April 2 imposed a 10% tariff on most countries, along with higher tariff rates for many trading partners that were then suspended for 90 days.
The Republican has also imposed 25% tariffs on autos, steel and aluminum, 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, and 145% tariffs on China.
He suggested that he did not expect to reach an agreement with some countries, but could instead be “setting a certain tariff”; for those trading partners in the next two to three weeks.
At the time of filing this report, it was not immediately clear if he was referring to the reciprocal tariffs announced on April 2, which are due to kick in on July 8 after a 90-day pause.
He repeated his claim that China had been “ripping us for many years”; on global trade, adding that former President Richard Nixon’s move to reach out and establish relations with China was “the worst thing”; he ever did.
Trump sounded more upbeat about China and the prospects for reaching an agreement in an interview with NBC News that was taped on Friday and broadcast on Sunday.
In the interview, he acknowledged that he had been “very tough with China,”; essentially cutting off trade between the world’s top two economies, but said Beijing now wanted to reach an agreement.
“We’ve gone cold turkey. That means we’re not losing a trillion dollars ... because we’re not doing business with them right now. And they want to make a deal. They want to make a deal very badly. We’ll see how that all turns out, but it’s got to be a fair deal,”; he said.
