President Donald Trump on Monday threatened to impose large tariffs on $300 billion in imports if Chinese leader Xi Jinping did not meet with him in Japan later this month, showing how he plans to immediately pivot from his trade war with Mexico back to Beijing.
Trump, in a wide-ranging and apparently impromptu interview with CNBC, said he was “scheduled to have a meeting” with Xi during the G-20 summit in Osaka, but Chinese officials have refused to publicly confirm the gathering. If Xi doesn’t meet with him, Trump said that he will move forward with tariffs on $300 billion in Chinese imports, which includes numerous consumer products.
“China is going to make a deal because they are going to have to make a deal,” Trump said.
The telephone interview was unusual because it appeared to be in response to an earlier CNBC segment, in which a U.S. Chamber of Commerce executive criticized the president’s tariff threats against Mexico last week. Trump had threatened to impose a 5 percent tariff on all Mexican goods beginning Monday, if Mexico didn’t take concrete action to stem the flow of migrants entering the United States.
During Trump’s interview with CNBC, he also had scathing criticism of the U.S. Federal Reserve and complained that Xi effectively had control of China’s central bank, while bemoaning the fact that he did not.
“Our Fed is very very destructive to us,” Trump said. “They haven’t listened to me.”
Trump has said the Fed should not have raised interest rates last year and has pushed them to cut interest rates this year, among other things.
The White House and Mexico reached an agreement late last week and Trump called off the tariff threat. It’s unclear how effective the deal will prove to be, as much will depend on how it is enforced, but Trump defended it vigorously during the CNBC interview. He said the only reason Mexican officials agreed to changes was because he threatened their goods with tariffs.
“Tariffs are a beautiful thing when you are the piggy bank,” Trump said.