Asked if he would speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump said,
President Donald Trump said Thursday that tariffs are an « excellent » alternative to a trade deal with China, hours before Chinese officials were set to meet U. S. trade negotiators later in Washington.
Negotiators for the U. S. and China will meet at 5 p.m. ET, Trump said. He had set a midnight deadline to slap additional tariffs on China, though he has suggested that his administration might reverse its decision depending on progress in the negotiations.
« They’ll see what they can do, » Trump said at a White House event Thursday afternoon. « But our alternative is an excellent one. »
« It’s an alternative I’ve spoken about for years. We’ll take in well over a hundred billion dollars a year. We never took in 10 cents from China, » Trump said, referring to additional tariffs he promised to impose. « And I think it’ll be a very strong day, frankly. But we’ll see. »
Fact-checkers have said Trump’s claim that tariffs on China will yield $100 billion annually — a claim he had tweeted a day earlier — is inaccurate.
