Donald Trump suggested Tuesday that he could extend a 90-day truce in his trade war with China, while his top White House economic adviser backtracked from the president’s announcement that Beijing had agreed to reduce tariffs on U.S.-made cars.
This story by Terrence Dopp and Laura Curtis appeared in Automotive News.
The developments again called into question the extent of a trade agreement the White House said Trump had struck with Chinese President Xi Jinping over dinner at the Group of 20 summit on Saturday.
Trump said in a series of tweets on Tuesday that “unless extended,” negotiations with China over economic policies the U.S. has long considered objectionable would end in 90 days. If the talks fail, Trump said he’d be happy to maintain tariffs on Chinese imports.
The director of the National Economic Council, Larry Kudlow, meanwhile said that an agreement Trump said he had secured from China to reduce or eliminate tariffs on U.S.-made cars isn’t final, backtracking from Trump’s announcement just two days earlier.
“I think it’s coming, OK,” adviser Larry Kudlow said on Fox News Tuesday. “It hasn’t been signed and sealed and delivered yet.”
The two sides didn’t issue a joint statement after the dinner. Instead, the White House and Beijing offered separate interpretations of the talks. The uncertainty was compounded by Trump’s tweet on Sunday saying China had agreed to cut tariffs on U.S. car imports, a commitment that Beijing didn’t confirm.