US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose new tariffs on Chinese goods despite a 90-day trade truce between the world's two largest economies.
The White House said on Saturday that the US and China had agreed to temporarily stop their trade war following high-stakes talks between Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Buenos Aires.
However, Trump on Tuesday said that “major tariffs” will be placed on goods imported from China into the US if his administration cannot reach an effective trade deal with Beijing.
We are either going to have a REAL DEAL with China, or no deal at all – at which point we will be charging major Tariffs against Chinese product being shipped into the United States. Ultimately, I believe, we will be making a deal – either now or into the future….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 5, 2018
…..China does not want Tariffs!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 5, 2018
Based on their agreement, Washington will not increase new tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods from 10 percent to 25 percent in January.
China, in return, “will agree to purchase a not yet agreed upon, but very substantial, amount of agricultural, energy, industrial, and other product from the United States to reduce the trade imbalance between our two countries.”
Meanwhile, the Chinese Commerce Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that Beijing was confident it could reach a trade deal with Washington.
China will work hard to quickly implement specific issues already agreed upon in the truce agreement, as both sides “actively promote the work of negotiations within 90 days in accordance with a clear timetable and road map,” said the statement.
“We are confident in implementation,” it said, calling the latest mutual talks “very successful.”
Trump initiated what is effectively a trade war with China in April, when he first imposed unusually heavy tariffs on imports from the Asian country.
Beijing has imposed retaliatory tariffs on $50 billion worth of US products in response to tariffs by the US.
The US imported nearly $500 billion worth of products from China last year while exporting about $130 billion in American goods to the country in the same period.