Trump says China has reached out for trade deals

President Donald Trump said on Thursday that China has reached out for trade talks. Trump signaled that he is reluctant to impose further tariffs on China because doing so would delay a trade deal. 

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, the president said people he regards as direct envoys of Chinese leader Xi Jinping had “reached out a number of times” in recent days. “I have a very good relationship with President Xi, and I think it’s going to continue,” Trump said. 

Asked if Xi himself had called, Trump replied, “Well, the same. I view it very similar. It would be top levels of China.”

Trump’s comments come after months of rising import duties that have pushed U.S. taxes on Chinese goods to a combined 145 percent and prompted Beijing to retaliate with tariffs of 125 percent. 

The trade war has halted commerce between the world’s two largest economies and complicated a separate effort to force ByteDance Ltd. to divest TikTok’s American operations.

On Thursday, the President suggested for the first time that further tariff hikes could backfire. “At a certain point I don’t want them to go higher because at a certain point you make it where people don’t buy,” he said. “So I may not want to go higher, or I may not want to even go up to that level. I may want to go to less because, you know, you want people to buy.”

Trump may provide a relief in tariffs if China accepts TikTok divestiture

Both capitals have insisted that the other side make the next move. Even so, Trump sounded upbeat about the chances of linking a wider trade deal with a TikTok deal. “Well, we have a deal for TikTok, but it’ll be subject to China, so we’ll just delay the deal till this thing works out,” he said.

He argued that selling TikTok’s U.S. assets to “some of the best companies in the world” would satisfy American security worries and still benefit Beijing. “I think it’s a good deal for China,” he said. “TikTok is good for China. And I think they’d like to see us do a deal, especially the deal that we have pretty much done.”

When asked about whether tariff relief might be offered if China accepts the divestiture plan, the president answered that nothing was off the table. 

“It’s a natural — if we’re making a deal. I guess we’ll spend five minutes to talk about TikTok. It wouldn’t take very long,” he said.

Trump declined to describe any timetable for new talks or for easing duties. He also avoided saying whether he and Xi had spoken directly, stressing instead that any overture from Beijing would reflect Xi’s personal approval. “If you knew him you would know that if they reached out, he knew exactly,” Trump said. “He knew everything about it, he runs it very tight, very strong, very smart.”

With both sides dug in publicly, it remains unclear how soon formal negotiations might resume. But Thursday’s remarks signal the White House could recalibrate its tariff strategy if it believes the two superpowers are ready to bargain on a package that revives trade flows and settles the future of TikTok in the U.S.

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