The White House on Tuesday insisted that President Trump won’t back down on his threat to impose a more than 100 percent tariff rate on China, significantly escalating the trade war between the two nations hours before the deadline approaches.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked what it would take for Trump to come to any sort of negotiating ground with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“It was a mistake for China to retaliate. The president, when America is punched, he punches back harder. That’s why there will be 104 percent tariffs going into effect on China tonight at midnight, but the president believes that Xi and China want to make a deal,” White House press Leavitt said, referring to an April 9 deadline for the tariffs to be imposed. “They just don’t know how to get that started.”
“If China reaches out to make a deal, he will be incredibly gracious,” Leavitt added.
She also reiterated that Trump “believes that China wants to make a deal,” after the president said on Truth Social earlier on Tuesday that “China also wants to make a deal, badly, but they don’t know how to get it started.”
“We are waiting for their call. It will happen!” he added.
Trump, in a post on Truth Social on Monday, threatened to add the 50 percent to the current 54 percent tariff rate. The rate was reached after Trump imposed a 34 percent tax, on top of a 20 percent rate, on China last week.
The Chinese government later on Monday vowed to “fight to the end” and impose more taxes on the U.S.
China initially responded to Trump’s tariffs by saying it would hit the U.S. with a matching 34 percent reciprocal tax on imports starting this week, arguing the sweeping import taxes undermine the “interests of the United States itself but also endangers global economic development and the stability of the production and supply chain.”
Trump and the White House have insisted that the manufacturing of iPhones, which are primarily made in China, could move to the U.S. The device, in which a single phone is manufactured across multiple nations, could as a result see prices skyrocket should Apple pass additional costs down to consumers if it doesn’t absorb the cost of tariffs.
“There’s an array of diverse jobs, more traditional manufacturing jobs… but also jobs in advanced technologies. The president is looking at all of those. He wants them to come back home,” Leavitt said, adding “absolutely. He believes we have the labor, we have the workforce, we have the resources to do it” when asked about the iPhone.
Meanwhile, Trump said there could be a potential trade deal in the works with South Korea and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said Vietnam and Japan are coming to the table for talks.
