President Donald Trump said the United States isn’t ready to make a trade deal with China, in remarks he made while on a state visit to Japan.
“I think they probably wish they made the deal that they had on the table before they tried to renegotiate it,” Trump said during a joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on May 27.
“They would like to make a deal. We’re not ready to make a deal.”
Trump added that the administration was receiving tens of billions of dollars in tariffs on Chinese goods, which he threatened “could go up very, very substantially, very easily.”
The Chinese regime reportedly backtracked on a pledge to change its laws to address core U.S. concerns including theft of U.S. intellectual property, forced technology transfer, and currency manipulation.
The Trump administration’s demand for the Chinese regime to implement structural reforms, which propelled it to launch the trade war with China in March 2018, has been a sticking point during trade negotiations.
While in Japan, the U.S. president also said that as a result of U.S. tariffs, businesses are leaving China and moving to countries that don’t have tariffs, including parts of Asia and the United States. However, he was also optimistic that the two sides could eventually reach an agreement.
“Sometimes, you’ve got to go backwards before you go forward. So I’m still hopeful we can get back to the table.”
For years, experts, U.S. officials, and lawmakers have been sounding the alarm that Huawei equipment could be used as a conduit for spying by Beijing, due to the company’s close ties to the Chinese military.
Trump is set to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping to discuss trade at the G-20 summit in Japan in June.
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