White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that President Donald Trump firmly believes the ball is in China’s court when it comes to negotiating the trade war between the two countries.
“I do have an additional statement that he just shared with me in the Oval Office,” Leavitt said from the press briefing podium. “‘The ball is in China’s court. China needs to make a deal with us. We don’t have to make a deal with them. There’s no difference between China and any other country, except that they are much larger, and China wants what we have, what every country wants, what we have: The American consumer, or to put it another way, they need our money.’”
“The president, again, has made it quite clear that he’s open to a deal with China,” Leavitt added. “So China needs to make a deal with the United States of America.”
Some context: Trump last week imposed an additional 145% tariff on all Chinese imports despite pausing his “reciprocal” levies on all other countries in a stunning reversal.
But China is not backing down, saying it will “fight to the end” if the president continues to escalate what is already becoming a full-blown trade war. On Friday, China also significantly ramped up its own duties on US imports into the country.