Trump Says China Violated Its Trade Agreement With US
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President Donald Trump said he expected to speak to Chinese President Xi Jinping after accusing China of violating an agreement with the U.S. to ease tariffs, ratcheting up tensions between the world’s two largest economies.“They violated a big part of the agreement we made,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
“But I’m sure that I’ll speak to President Xi, and hopefully we’ll work that out,” he added.
The president, who first levied the criticism on social media May 30, did not specify how China was not abiding by the agreement negotiated earlier this month in Switzerland. At the time, both countries said they would scale back tit-for-tat tariffs and continue trade talks.
Following a rally that put the S&P 500 on track for its best May since 1990, the gauge fell as much as 1.2% before paring losses.
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The comments spelled freshturmoilfor the president’s trade agenda, which was shaken earlier this week by a federal court ruling that halted the bulk of his tariffs. An appeals court temporarily paused the decision to hear arguments, though it could ultimately back the initial decision and block Trump’s duties.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in an interview with CNBC suggested that China had been slow-walking their efforts, saying that the administration has “been very focused on monitoring Chinese compliance, or in this case, noncompliance, with the agreement.”
Greer suggested that one particular concern was critical minerals.
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“We haven’t seen the flow of some of those critical minerals as they were supposed to be doing,” he said, later adding, “China continues to, you know, slow down and choke off things like critical minerals and rare Earth magnets.”
Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said the U.S. and China have “maintained communication over their respective concerns in the economic and trade fields” since the talks in Geneva and cited the administration’s recent actions against Beijing.
“China has repeatedly raised concerns with the U.S. regarding its abuse of export control measures in the semiconductor sector and other related practices. China once again urges the U.S. to immediately correct its erroneous actions, cease discriminatory restrictions against China and jointly uphold the consensus reached at the high-level talks in Geneva,” the spokesman added.
China’s position on its rare earths restrictions were never publicly clarified following the Switzerland agreement, and the country’s exporters this month were still seeking clarity from Beijing on whether they’re allowed to sell to U.S. buyers. China’s curbs apply to all countries, meaning sellers would need to seek individual exemptions, a slower and more complex process than the White House and importers were expecting.
The agreement earlier this month buoyed investors who had been eager for Beijing and Washington to find an offramp from their tariff fight, which had roiled markets and threatened to spark a global slowdown. But since the deal, U.S. and China tensions have flared again.
Senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller told CNN on May 30 that the U.S. had “a broad range of options to hold China accountable” and that future steps would be similar to the crackdown on student visas.
“I’m not going to detail for you right now the entire hand the president is willing to play,” Miller continued. “I will just put it this way, there are measures that have already been taken, there are measures that are being taken.”
Bessent
Miller later told reporters that China needed to act “as soon as possible” to avoid additional action.
“China did not fulfill the obligations that it made and committed to with the United States, and so that opens up all manner of action for the United States,” he said.
Trump’s comments come a day after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that talks with China on trade were underway but had “stalled.” Bessent suggested that a call between Trump and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping might be necessary to break the deadlock.
“I think that given the magnitude of the talks, given the complexity, that this is going to require both leaders to weigh in with each other,” Bessent said in a Fox News interview.
The last time the two presidents spoke was in January, before Trump’s inauguration. The U.S. president said he would speak to the Chinese leader “maybe at the end of the week” following the Geneva talks — which concluded in mid-May — but that call did not appear to take place.
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