After the latest U.S. tariffs caused Asian markets and China’s currency to plummet, Beijing signaled Monday it’s seeking a “calm” end to the trade war with the United States.
“I think we’re going to have a deal,” Trump told reporters.
The president said Chinese officials have contacted their U.S. counterparts and want to “get back to the table,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
“They want to make a deal. That’s a great thing,” he said.
On Monday, China’s top trade negotiator, Vice Premier Liu He, told a state-controlled newspaper his regime “is willing to resolve its trade dispute with the United States through calm negotiations and resolutely opposes the escalation of the conflict,” Reuters reported.
Early Monday, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 was down 2.3 percent, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 1.5 percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 3.3 percent. Meanwhile, the Chinese yuan dropped to 7.1487 to the dollar, an 11-year low, weeks after the Treasury Department formally designated China a currency manipulator.
On Friday, the Dow plummeted more than 600 points after Trump reacted on Twitter to China’s announcement of new tariffs on $75 billion in U.S. goods. The president “hereby ordered” U.S. companies operating in China to consider moving out. And he announced the U.S. would increase existing tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese goods to 30 percent from 25 percent. In addition, he said, new tariffs on another $300 billion of imports would be 15 percent instead of 10 percent.
Liu said Monday that China welcomes “enterprises from all over the world, including the United States, to invest and operate in China.”
“We will continue to create a good investment environment, protect intellectual property rights, promote the development of smart intelligent industries with our market open, resolutely oppose technological blockades and protectionism, and strive to protect the completeness of the supply chain,” he said.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., in an interview with CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday, chastised Democrats for criticizing Trump’s trade policy toward China after having complained about Beijing’s unfair practices for years.
“Every Democrat and every Republican of note has said China cheats,” Graham said, noting Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has urged an aggressive response to Beijing. “The Democrats for years have been claiming that China should be stood up to, now Trump is and we’ve just got to accept the pain that comes with standing up to China.”
At the G-7 summit in France on Sunday, Trump wrote on Twitter that world leaders were “laughing at how knowingly inaccurate the U.S. reporting of events and conversations at the G-7 is.”
“These Leaders, and many others, are getting a major case study of Fake News at it’s finest! They’ve got it all wrong, from Iran, to China Tariffs, to Boris!” he said, referring to the new British prime minister, Boris Johnson.
