President Donald Trump is confident that China wants to make a deal with the US after he raised tariffs against the country while announcing a 90-day pause for all other countries earlier today. Trump's announcement, made on his social media platform, sent markets surging, with individual stocks gaining as much as 20% as markets took a sigh of relief after days of heavy losses. However, in a media talk after the announcement, the President asserted that nothing is over yet and added that China is eager to make a deal with him but just doesn't know how to. His comments about China mirrored those made by the White House press secretary as she confirmed during a conference that Trump would levy a total of 104% tariffs on Chinese goods starting today.
President Trump Asserts Countries Are Eager To Negotiate Fair Trade With America
Following the President's social media post, tech and travel stocks rallied and posted double-digit percentage gains. Two of the top performers were Tesla and United Airlines, whose shares have gained 21% and 25% today, respectively. After his social media post, Trump gave a brief talk to reporters, in which he shared that China's imbalance in trade with the US is unfair.
"Last year China made 1 trillion dollars off trade with the United States. That's not right," stated Trump. His social media post, which announced the 90-day tariff pause, also revealed 125% tariffs on China, as China had announced earlier that it would increase tariffs on American goods.
Trump added that his pause is "for a short period of time" and asserted that "somebody had to do it." The President maintained that "nothing's over yet," as he believes that the US is witnessing a "tremendous amount of spirit from other countries" when it comes to negotiating trade terms with America.
These countries include China, shared Trump. "China wants to make a deal. They just don't know how to go about it. You know, it's one of those things," said Trump. "They're proud people," he added, including President Xi, who is "a proud man," believes the President.
"I know him [Xi] very well," he outlined. Trump believes that China doesn't "quite know how to go about it. But they'll figure it out. They're in the process of figuring it out." He maintained that "they [Chinese] want to make a deal."
Apart from China, other countries are also interested in making a deal. Trump shared that they'll either approach the White House, the Treasury Department or the Commerce Department to negotiate trade terms with America. He added that the 90-day pause was for all countries that didn't retaliate to his tariffs. He pointed out, "I told them if you retaliate, we're going to double it. And that's what I did with China, because they did retaliate."
"We'll see how it all works out. I think that it's going to work out amazing," he maintained. "Someday you have to cut the bow and you have to do what you do . . .and that's what I did and I'm very happy to have done it," said Trump.
