President Trump, whose commercial war with China has shaken financial markets and threatened to interrupt huge stripes of commerce, suggested on Friday that he had been in contact with Xi Jinping, president of China, even when Chinese officials insisted that there are no negotiations.
In an interview with Time on Tuesday, Trump said Mr. Xi had called it, although he refused to say when, and said that his team was in active conversations with China in a commercial agreement. When asked about the interview outside the White House on Friday morning, the president reiterated that he had spoken with the Chinese president “numerous occasions”, but refused to respond when he was pressed if any had happened after the tariffs imposed this corn.
Mr. Trump’s comments seemed to create the impression of progress with China to calm nerve financial markets, which have fallen in the midst of signs that the largest economies in the world are in a confrontation. The S&P 500 has dropped 10 percent since the opening of January 20 of Trump.
But the statements of the president of the conversations have rejected the legs by Chinese officials, who have repeatedly denied this week that they are actively negotiating with the United States.
“China and the United States do not have heroes consultations or negotiations about the issue of tariffs,” said Guo Jiakun, spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at a press conference on Friday. “The United States should not confuse the public.”
Chinese officials have repeatedly said that the United States should stop threatening China and participating in the dialogue based on equality and respect. On Thursday, the Yadong, spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce of China, said that “there were no economic and commercial negotiations between China and the United States.”
“Any statement about progress in the economic and commercial negotiations of China-United States are rumors without foundation without objective evidence,” he said. The Chinese embassy in Washington declined to comment on Friday.
“As we have always said, President Trump’s team continues to correspond to his Chinese counterparts,” said Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Secretary. “The president is still optimistic about ensuring a fair trade agreement with China.”
Trump increased tariffs on Chinese imports to a minimum or 145 percent this month, in an attempt to force China to commercial negotiations. But Chinese officials responded by issuing their own tariffs on American products and holding exports to the United States of minerals and magnets that are necessary for many indies, including the defense sector.
The Chinese also seem to have ignored Mr. Trump’s suggestions that the best way to solve the problem would be Mr. XI to contact him directly. With the two governments at a dead point, companies that depend on the supply of China products, which vary from hardware stores to players, have a leg in agitation. Triple digit tariff rates have forced many to completely stop shipments.
Trump’s officials have admitted that the status quo with China in trade is not sustainable, and some have considered remembering the levies in the country. But the White House insists that it will not do it unless an agreement is reached for China to do the same.
When asked in the time interview if he would call Mr. XI if the Chinese leader did not call first, Mr. Trump said No.
“We met with China,” he said. “We are fine with everyone.”
Trump also said, without evidence, that he had “made 200 agreements.” He said he would end and announce them in the next three to four weeks.
Trump announced more high “reciprocal” tariffs in almost 60 countries in early April. Since then, the White House has said that it received applications for dishes from countries to negotiate commercial terms, and Peter Navarro, commercial advisor of the White House, said the administration would reach “90 agreements in 90 days.”
Mrs. Leavitt said this week that the Trump administration had received 18 paper proposals and that the commercial team was “gathering with 34 countries only this week.”
But many trade experts have expressed skepticism, since US trade agreements have tasks about anverage for a year to negotiate.
The president told Time that trade with countries like China had been unfair and needed to be changed. “You can’t let them win a billion dollars from us,” he said.
Trump said he would look individually to companies seeking tariff exemptions. Hi, he also said he had a list of products that would be fine to import. “There are some products that I really don’t want to do here,” he said.
But Mr. Trump insisted that tariffs encouraged companies to return to the United States, and that would consider having high tariffs of one year from now on a “total victory” because the country would be “making a fortune.”
“This is a great success,” he said. “You just don’t know it yet.”
In public, Mr. Trump has been saying that tariffs are working well, that countries are reaching him that the treatment began and that everything will work wonderfully for the American people.
In private, the president’s team has been less cheerful. The main retailers have informed Mr. Trump about their expectations for the shelves of empty stores if their tariffs remain in place. His main economic advisors, the Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Besent and the Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, were so alarmed by the mass sale in the bond markets and the potential of a generalized financial panic, which urged Mr. Trump to put a 90 -day pause in their reciprocal rates two weeks ago.
Since then, his team has focused on how to reduce his commercial war with China without seeming to have capitulated.
Trump and some of his advisors believed that the Chinese economy would be highly vulnerable to US tariffs, given the country’s dependence on exporting to the United States. But they seem to have misunderstood the scope of the president of the president about Mr. XI.
Chinese officials have made it clear, through their statements to the media, who have not appreciated Mr. Trump’s intimidation tone and that any negotiation must be carried out through a formal process.
Beijing has also carefully censored and selected the information in China about the commercial war, and emphasized the country’s resistance and ability to resist pain.
Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has seen his survey numbers fall. His approval index in the economy, always a strength for him, has now become a weakness. Republican legislators fear an elimination in the intermediate works of 2026, which aggravates Trump pressure to make agreements that restore a feeling of economic well -being.
Eswar Prasad, a professor of commercial policy at the University of Cornell and former head of the China Division for the International Monetary Fund, said that both countries seemed to recognize the need to begin negotiations, but each wanted to start the issue in their own terms.
“The narrative in Beijing seems to have changed in recent days, with the political leaders there hardening their backs and the feeling that they can get this,” he said. “His perception seems that Trump’s team will come to them since the US economy is suffering proportionally more damage to the growing commercial war.”
