US President Donald Trump accused China of violating a two-week-old truce on tariffs – a sign trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies could again escalate.
Washington and Beijing agreed to temporarily lower tit-for-tat tariffs after talks in Geneva earlier this month.
Trump said on Friday in a Truth Social post that tariffs had left China in “grave economic danger”, before the countries had made a “fast deal”.
However he said China had “totally violated its agreement with us”, without explaining how.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer later said China had not been removing non-tariff barriers in the way that had been agreed. Beijing is yet to respond to the claims.
Greer told TV network CNBC that China was yet to properly roll back other trade restrictions it had levied on the US.
He said when China responded to the US’s tariffs with its own, they also put in place countermeasures such as putting some US companies on blacklists and restricting the flow of rare earth materials.
“They removed the tariff like we did but some of the countermeasures they’ve slowed on,” Ambassador Greer said.
He added the US had been closely watching China to make sure it would comply with the deal and they were “very concerned” with the progress.
Greer said: “The United States did exactly what it was supposed to do and the Chinese are slow-rolling their compliance which is completely unacceptable and has to be addressed”.
Beijing is yet to respond to the assertions. On Friday, its foreign ministry had declined to respond to comments made by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that trade talks with China had become “a bit stalled”.
Bessent told Fox News on Thursday: “I think that given the magnitude of the talks, given the complexity, that this is going to require [leaders of both the countries] to weigh in with each other.”
Trump’s global tariff regime was dealt a blow on Wednesday following a ruling that he had exceeded his authority. His plans have been temporarily reinstated after the White House appealed the decision.
His administration this week also moved to “aggressively” revoke the visas of Chinese students studying in the US, of which there are an estimated 280,000.
In mid-May, Washington and Beijing had agreed to reduce tariffs imposed on each other’s imports in a deal where both nations cancelled some tariffs altogether and suspended others for 90 days.
Bessent said talks on a further deal had lost momentum, but stressed they were continuing.
“I believe that we will be having more talks with [China] in the next few weeks and I believe we may at some point have a call between the president and [Chinese President Xi Jinping],” Bessent said on Thursday.
He added the pair had “a very good relationship” and he was “confident that the Chinese will come to the table when President Trump makes his preferences known”.
Under the deal struck earlier this month, the US lowered tariffs imposed on goods from China from 145% to 30%.
China’s retaliatory tariffs on US goods dropped from 125% to 10%.
The US President has argued imposing tariffs on foreign goods would encourage US consumers to buy more American-made goods, bringing back manufacturing jobs while increase the amount of tax revenue raised.
They have been used by the Trump administration as leverage in negotiations as it seeks to reduce trade deficits with other nations.
A delegation from Japan are continuing trade talks with their US counterparts in Washington on Friday.
Bessent said “a couple” of US trade deals were “very close”, but “a couple of them are more complicated”.
Trump’s tariff regime remains in the balance following the decision by the US Court of International Trade, which ruled that Trump had overstepped his power by imposing the duties.
Some analysts believe it will mean countries will be less likely to rush to secure trade deals with the US.
A federal appeals court has granted a bid from the White House to temporarily suspend the lower court’s order, which Trump described as “horrific”.
“Hopefully, the Supreme Court will reverse this horrible, Country [sic] threatening decision, QUICKLY and DECISIVELY,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
By BBC News
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