US–China Tensions Rise Amid Tariff Disagreement

Beijing changed its tone over the weekend after the United States accused the Chinese communist regime of violating their agreement.

President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on May 30, 2025. Allison Robbert/AFP via Getty Images

After President Donald Trump said that China “totally violated” the 90-day trade agreement struck on May 12 in Geneva, Chinese regime spokespersons on June 2 also accused the United States of violating the deal reached between the two nations.

Several Trump aides said that Trump and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi are expected to speak soon, with White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett specifying it could happen this week.

“President Trump, we expect, is going to have a wonderful conversation about the trade negotiations this week with President Xi. That’s our expectation,” Hassett told ABC News.

Beijing had changed its tone over the weekend, notably after the United States called out the Chinese communist regime’s actions during a high-profile defense summit.

Agreement Terms

Trump had written on social media May 30 that China had not stuck to the Geneva agreement, with aides explaining in media interviews the same day that their concern was with the critical mineral export controls Beijing set in early April.

U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Jamieson Greer told CNBC that after Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcements, China had been the only country to issue retaliatory trade actions.

Greer had co-brokered the Geneva deal, which suspended the trade actions on both sides for 90 days to facilitate negotiations. The United States lowered tariffs on Chinese imports and de minimis shipments. China agreed to both tariff and non-tariff measures, namely, rolling back the latest critical mineral export controls, Greer said on May 30.

“You can see that Europe, Japan, the United States, elsewhere, we haven’t seen the flow of some of those critical minerals as they were supposed to be doing,” he said.

These minerals are used in the automotive, energy, and defense industries.

Automotive trade industry groups had written to the Trump administration on May 9, warning of an impending work stoppage.

China corners the market on critical minerals processing, and the controls meant that rare earth magnets needed for “critical automotive components, including automatic transmissions, throttle bodies, alternators, various motors, sensors, seat belts, speakers, lights, motors, power steering, and cameras” could slow or stop, the industry wrote in a letter.

Auto executives told Reuters on May 30 that the situation was not yet resolved. Only a handful of licenses have been issued.

European semiconductor companies had also pushed back on the export controls, meeting with the Chinese regime’s commerce ministry on May 28.

Rhetoric Escalates

Chinese regime spokespersons said on May 30 that officials stood ready to continue negotiations but made no mention of rolling back the controls. They claimed that the export controls were aligned with international prices and weren’t targeting specific countries.

On June 2, a commerce ministry spokesperson said recent U.S. actions undermined the Geneva agreement and called on the United States to change its stance on several issues.

One was the U.S. Commerce Department’s warning against using Huawei Ascend AI chips, which were developed in violation of U.S. export controls.

Another was the U.S. State Department’s announcement that it would begin revoking visas of Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party.

Another was the halting of sales of chip design software to China, which had been reported but not publicly announced.

Although the United States did not agree to any non-tariff measures, the spokesperson said these actions violated the agreement and warned of retaliation.

Chinese regime spokespersons had made similar remarks over the weekend after U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s speech at the annual Shangri-la Dialogue, a high-level defense summit in the Indo-Pacific.

Hegseth said that the Indo-Pacific was the United States’ “priority theater” and conveyed Trump’s vision of peace through strength.

He also listed several of the Chinese communist regime’s aggressive actions, from intimidation in international waters to cyberattacks on foreign nations. Hegseth then suggested that nations “beware” their level of economic “entanglement” with the Chinese Communist Party while seeking defense support from the United States.

Reuters contributed to this report.