Trump wages war of words after Beijing ups tariffs

Donald Trump continued his war of words with China on Tuesday, with a series of tweets claiming tariffs had rebuilt America’s steel industry and criticising Beijing for walking away from a deal.

On Friday, the US raised tariffs on $200bn of Chinese goods from 10% to 25% after talks aimed at ending the escalating trade war failed to make a breakthrough. Trump warned China not to retaliate, tweeting it would “only get worse” if it did.

But Beijing ignored Trump and on Monday announced a new 25% import duty on around $60bn of US products.

The latest setbacks in US-China relations hit global markets hard on Monday, with both the Dow Jones and S&P 500 suffering their biggest one-day fall since January.

Trump continued to justify tariffs and fire salvos at Beijing. In a string of tweets posted late morning BST on Tuesday, Trump said that “in one year Tariffs have rebuilt our Steel Industry – it is booming! We placed a 25% Tariff on dumped steel from China & other countries, and now we have a big and growing industry.”

He also argued that China “buys MUCH less from us that we buy from them, by almost 500 Billion Dollars, so we are in a fantastic position”, adding: “We can make a deal with China tomorrow, before their companies start leaving so as not to lose USA business, but the last time we were close they wanted to renegotiate the deal. No way! We are in a much better position now than any deal we could have made.

“We will be taking in billions of Dollars, and moving jobs back to the USA where they belong. Other countries are already negotiating with us because they don’t want this to happen to them.”

He also tweeted: “When the time is right we will make a deal with China. My respect and friendship with President Xi is unlimited but, as I have told him many times before, this must be a great deal for the United States or it just doesn’t make any sense.

“We have to be allowed to make up some of the tremendous ground we have lost to China on Trade since the ridiculous one sided formation of the WTO. It will all happen, and much faster than people think!”