US President Donald Trump is waiting for Beijing “to make the first move” to initiate tariff negotiations and believes it “would be gracious if China intends to make a deal with the United States”, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Friday.
Earlier in the day, Beijing announced it was raising tariffs on all US imports to 125 per cent, from 84 per cent, in response to Trump’s move on Wednesday increasing levies on Chinese imports to 145 per cent.
But Leavitt warned that adopting retaliatory measures “would not be good for China”.
The press secretary’s comments cap off a week of on-again-off-again moves in an unprecedented trade war – triggering equally abrupt stock market swings – as Trump tries to reset a bilateral trade relationship characterised for decades by surpluses in China’s favour.
Stocks closed up on Friday, regaining some of what they lost on Thursday, as Wall Street finished a historic week of immense swings. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 619 points, or 1.5 per cent; the S&P 500 advanced 1.8 per cent; and the Nasdaq recovered slightly more than 2 per cent.
Beijing seemed up for a war of words. Earlier on Friday, a Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesman said that Trump’s tariffs action “has become a numbers game, which has no practical economic significance”, and was destined to become “a joke in the history of the world economy”.
