Donald Trump says trade deal with China may still happen after Xi Jinping sent him a ‘beautiful letter’
- The US president told reporters that the letter said ‘Let’s work together, let’s see if we can get something done’
- He suggested his threats to raise tariffs on US$200 billion of imports had helped speed up the reconciliation process
US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that a trade deal with China is “possible” this week and that his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping had sent him a “beautiful letter” – comments that contrasted sharply with several hard-line tweets he had posted recently.
Speaking to reporters just as Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He arrived in Washington for an 11th round of negotiations aimed at ending a trade war between the world’s two largest economies, Trump suggested that his order to raise tariffs on US$200 billion of imports from China had helped accelerate the reconciliation process.
“We put the tariffs on, we made the statement, and then they upped the meeting. ‘How about let’s go back to Thursday?’,” Trump said after claiming that the Chinese side suggested a delay in talks until a later date.
In remarks at the White House, Trump reiterated that he had announced the increase of tariffs on those goods to 25 per cent, from 10 per cent, in response to Beijing’s bid to backtrack on a number of fundamental commitments.
“We were getting very close to a deal, then they started to renegotiate the deal,” he said, adding that one of those areas was protection of intellectual property rights.