Trump has ramped up a trade fight with China, raising tariffs on imports from the country to 20%, moves the president has said are a response to Beijing’s failure to crack down on the flow of illegal fentanyl and the precursor chemicals used to make it.
The Wall Street Journal previously reported that US and Chinese officials were discussing a possible “birthday summit” in June that would see the two leaders — who both have birthdays in the middle of the month — meet for the first time since Trump returned to the White House. The US president did not detail specific timing for the possible meeting.China has accused Trump of using fentanyl as pretext to raise tariffs. Officials from China’s Foreign Ministry and Ministry of Public Security previously said Beijing had forcefully cracked down on drug trafficking. A Foreign Ministry official said Washington should offer a “big thank you” instead of slapping levies on imports, and urged the Trump administration to resume talks.
Discussions between the two countries on trade and other issues are stuck at lower levels, with both sides deadlocked on how to proceed. Beijing said Washington hasn’t outlined detailed steps they expect from China on fentanyl in order to have the tariffs lifted, according to people familiar with the issue. Trump’s team rejected the assertion, according to a person familiar with the matter, who said the White House had sent messages to China through diplomatic channels.
Trump’s tariff moves are part of a broad effort to reshape global trade flows that he says are imbalanced and to raise revenue for the US. Last week, he hit steel and aluminum imports with a 25% levy and is moving to implement sweeping reciprocal tariffs in early April, which will counter country-by-country import taxes and other barriers to US goods.
China has implemented retaliatory tariffs, but those measures have been much more limited than its response to Trump’s trade actions in his first term. After Trump doubled the tariff on Chinese imports to 20% earlier this month, Beijing announced levies as high as 15% on US agricultural goods and banned trade with some defense companies.
Trump has said he is open to talks with China on reaching a fresh trade deal, even as he intensifies pressure on Beijing. Trump has often praised Xi, with whom he brokered a trade deal in 2020 under which China promised to crack down on the theft of US trade secrets and purchase an additional $200 billion in American products. But that relationship was derailed after the Covid-19 pandemic hit, a global public health crisis Trump has blamed on China.
Trump and Xi spoke in January, days before the US president was inaugurated for his second term, in a discussion that touched on trade relations, a potential sale of the US operations of ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok app and efforts to curb fentanyl trafficking.
Trump in February said he had also spoken to Xi after the inauguration as well, but did not specify when that conversation took place. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman referred questions to the January call.
