Washington, DC – With the clock ticking for additional United States tariffs to be placed on goods from China, President Donald Trump has said he is waiting for a call from Beijing to defuse a growing trade war.
After a phone call with South Korea’s acting president, Han Duck-soo, on Tuesday, Trump said South Korean officials are travelling to the US for trade talks.
He added that “many other countries” want to open economic negotiations with Washington.
“China also wants to make a deal, badly, but they don’t know how to get it started,” the US president wrote in a social media post. “We are waiting for their call. It will happen!”
However, hours later, a senior Trump aide cast doubt over Beijing’s willingness to negotiate a solution to tit-for-tat tariffs, suggesting that a breakthrough is unlikely in the coming days.
“They [China] elected to announce retaliation,” US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said at a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday.
“Other countries did not. Other countries signalled that they’d like to find a path forward on reciprocity. China has not said that, and we will see where that goes.”
Trump has threatened to impose additional 50-percent tariffs on Chinese goods if China does not revoke the retaliatory levies it imposed on US products
If implemented, the new US levies would be as high as 104 percent on some Chinese goods.
Beijing, however, has appeared to refuse to budge, rejecting what it called “economic bullying” by Washington.
“We Chinese are not troublemakers, but we will not flinch when trouble comes our way,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said on Tuesday.
“Intimidation, threats and blackmail are not the right way to engage with China. China will take necessary measures to firmly safeguard its legitimate and lawful rights and interests.”
Lin added that, if the US is determined to engage in a trade war, “China’s response will continue to the end”.
Despite the growing competition and tensions between the US and China, Washington and Beijing are major trade partners.
According to US government data, the US imported $438.9bn in Chinese goods last year, making China the second largest exporter to the US after Mexico.
US exports to China totalled $143.5bn in 2024.
Foreign policy hawks in Washington have long called for scaling back economic ties with Beijing and reducing dependence on Chinese goods.
On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt used the friction with China as a means of illustrating Trump’s strength as president.
“America does not need other countries as much as other countries need us, and President Trump knows this. He’s going to use the leverage of our markets and our country to the advantage of the people he was sworn in to represent,” Leavitt said.
“Countries like China who have chosen to retaliate and try to double down on their mistreatment of American workers are making a mistake. President Trump has a spine of steel, and he will not break.”
Relations between the US and China have soured over many issues in recent years, including trade, the status of Taiwan, Beijing’s claims in the South China Sea and an ongoing US push against growing Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific.
But the ongoing tariff crisis between the two countries is part of Trump’s worldwide trade shake-up, which has not spared even the closest US allies.
Trump has announced a 10-percent baseline tariff on all imports to the US, with additional levies — described as “reciprocal tariffs” — on countries with which the US has large trade deficits.
On Tuesday, Greer portrayed the US as the victim of an unfair international trading system that has gutted American industries.
Beyond tariffs, he slammed other countries for imposing barriers and regulations that limit US imports, including restrictions by the European Union on shellfish and by Australia on pork.
Greer said “nearly 50 countries” have approached him to discuss Trump’s trade policy and “explore how to achieve reciprocity”.
Trump’s tariffs, however, have rocked global markets and raised concerns about a spike in prices for US consumers.
But the Trump administration has argued that the tariffs will ultimately force companies to manufacture their products in the US, reviving industries and creating jobs.
Greer said the plan will not achieve its aims “overnight”.
“We must move away from an economy that’s based solely on government spending and the financial sector, and we must become an economy based on producing real goods and services that provide jobs for working class and middle class Americans in their communities,” he told senators.
“This adjustment may be challenging at times. And in a moment of drastic, overdue change, I’m certain that the American people can rise to the challenges they’ve done before.”
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