China Insists No Tariff Talks Underway With Trump and Xi or Top Aides, Despite U.S. Claims
China on Monday once again denied that it is in talks to resolve its tariff war with the U.S., after a series of statements by President Donald Trump and his aides suggesting trade negotiations were underway.
“Let me make it clear one more time that China and the U.S. are not engaged in any consultation or negotiation on tariffs,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said at a press conference.
Guo also appeared to reject Trump’s claim, in an interview with Time last week, that Chinese President Xi Jinping had called him.
“As far as I know, there have not been any calls between the two presidents recently,” the spokesman said.
The latest blanket denial was in line with Beijing’s hardline stance against Trump’s massive 145% tariffs on imports from China, a top supplier of U.S. goods.
Trump administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, insist that the U.S. is better positioned to win a trade war than China is.
But American business owners and analysts are raising alarms that the effective trade embargo with China could soon result in major economic consequences, including higher prices, product shortages and store closures.
Against that backdrop — and Trump’s recent claim that his administration will be finished crafting new trade deals with numerous countries in as little as three or four weeks — some U.S. officials have expressed more openness toward a dialogue with Beijing.
“Every day we are in conversation with China,” Trump’s Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, said Sunday on CNN.
When told that the Chinese deny this, Rollins said, “Well, according to our team in Washington, the conversations are ongoing regarding multiples of trade, multiples of the trade goods that are coming out and going in.”
“The bottom line with China is this: They need us more than we need them,” she said.
Asked on Sunday why China would deny that negotiations are underway, Bessent said, “Well, I think they’re playing to a different audience.”
Pressed to explain whether the talks are actually happening, he said, “We have a process in place. And again, I just believe these Chinese tariffs are unsustainable.”
Bessent predicted last week that a “de-escalation” with China was coming in the “very near future.”
Source : CNBC
