Claims......

Trump claims China asked for renewed trade talks

By GABBY ORR

President Donald Trump claimed on Monday that Chinese officials are prepared to return to the negotiating table, signaling there may be a path to a potential détente in his tit-for-tat trade war with Beijing.

“China called last night our top trade people and said ‘let’s get back to the table.’ They have been hurt very badly, but they understand this is the right thing to do and I have great respect for it,” Trump told reporters during a bilateral meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on the sidelines of the G7 summit.

“They want to make a deal,” Trump continued. “That’s a great thing.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang appeared to dispute the president's claim that a pair of phone conversations had taken place.

"I haven't heard about this," he told NBC News.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin told reporters that Chinese Vice Premier Liu He had called for talks to resume when Trump pressed him for details during a bilateral meeting later in the afternoon with the Indian prime minister. It was not immediately clear, however, if Mnuchin was referring to a phone call Liu made to U.S. officials or his comments at a technology conference earlier in the day.

Trump’s whiplash-inducing comments come just 24 hours after White House officials — seeking to clarify a statement the president made about having second thoughts on his escalating trade war — said his only “regret” was that he didn’t raise tariffs further on Chinese imports. That claim followed Trump’s announcement Friday that he planned to increase existing tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese goods, from 25 percent to 30 percent, and to hike a new round of tariffs on another $300 billion in Chinese exports from 10 percent to 15 percent.

“I’m getting a lot of money in tariffs. It’s coming in by the billions,” Trump told reporters here Sunday morning, adding that he believes China wants “to make a deal much more than I do.”

The president also opened the door to using his executive powers to declare a national emergency with respect to China’s trade practices, saying, however, that he doesn’t currently have plans to do so.

“It has become unquestionably clear that the administration’s tariff war against China is politically motivated. What Washington wants from its largest trade partner is for it to be content to play second fiddle and meekly do as it demands,” China Daily, a state-owned newspaper, wrote in an editorial on Sunday.

By Monday, however, both U.S. and Chinese officials appeared open to resuming talks on trade – that is, as long as such discussions remain “calm,” Liu said at a conference in China.

“We think an escalation of the trade war is against the interest of China, the U.S. and the entire world,” said Liu, who is China’s top trade negotiator.

Liu added that China “will strive to protect the integrity of industrial chains,” an element of the trade dispute that Trump mentioned earlier in the day.

“The have supply chains that are unbelievably intricate and people are leaving and they are going to other countries, including the United States, by the way,” Trump said.

Many household U.S. companies have supply chains in China, where major disruptions have occurred as a result of the ongoing trade war. On Monday, Trump suggested the U.S. is “going to get a lot of” production back if his administration reaches a deal with the Chinese.

Liu, who never mentioned himself whether phone conversations took place, said Beijing is “willing to solve the problem through consultation and cooperation with a calm attitude.”

Trump has used the G7 summit to advance his trade agenda in the face of skeptical European allies, including by announcing Sunday that he and Japan had reached an agreement “in principle” on trade. He and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also discussed the broad contours of a bilateral trade deal once the United Kingdom leaves the European Union. Johnson has set a deadline of October for his nation's departure from the European Union, which he’s repeatedly said will occur with or without a deal with the EU.

With hours to go before the three-day summit concludes and he returns to Washington, Trump said the U.S. is “in a stronger position now to do a deal — a fair deal for everyone” with China.

“Anything’s possible,” Trump said Monday. “We’re having very meaningful talks. Much more meaningful that at any time, I would think.”