Donald Trump warns China not to raise tariffs on farm products ‘because they think that hits me’
US president says he will ‘probably’ reach a trade deal with China but that agricultural tariffs intended to hurt him politically are ‘not nice’
US President Donald Trump said on Monday that he will “probably” come to an agreement with Beijing about trade action he has threatened to take against Chinese imports.
Trump also warned China that threats to raise tariffs on American agricultural products, in an attempt to hurt a constituency that provided some of his strongest political support, would backfire.
The US leader said he was faced with a choice: either cut a deal with China to back away from his plan for punitive tariffs on US$150 billion worth of imports or come up with measures that will offset losses tied to retaliatory import taxes Beijing has put on US agricultural products.
Taking questions from reporters at the start of a cabinet meeting on Monday, Trump spoke of reaching a deal with China – “Probably, we will.”
“If we don’t, they'll have to pay pretty high taxes to do business with our country. That's a possibility,” Trump said.
“But if we do a deal with China,” he continued, “if during the course of a negotiation they want to hit the farmers because they think that hits me, I wouldn’t say that's nice.