‘Ball is in China’s court’: Donald Trump calls on Beijing to make tariff deal with US

As trade tensions between US and China continue to escalate, President Donald Trump said that it was now up to Beijing to make a tariff deal with him.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt read a statement she said Trump dictated, “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 they are much larger, and China wants what we have, what every country wants, what we have — the American consumer — or to put another way, they need our money,” the statement added.

This comes in the backdrop of the growing battle over the reciprocal tariffs between China and the US. Beijing recently ordered airlines not to take further deliveries of Boeing Co. jets, marking its latest salvo against Trump’s decision to hike levies on Chinese goods to 145 per cent.

In a post on his Truth Social network Tuesday, Trump said that China “reneged on the big Boeing deal, saying that they will ‘not take possession’ of fully committed to aircraft”.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration stated that it is negotiating with dozens of countries to make a trade deal for relief on the sweeping reciprocal tariffs imposed by the US president.

China-US trade war

Last week, Trump announced a complete pause of all ‘reciprocal’ tariffs, except those on China. He said that he authorised a 90-day PAUSE and a substantially lowered reciprocal tariff during this period, of 10 per cent, also effective immediately.

In fact, he announced a further hike to the tariffs on the Chinese goods, “Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, effective immediately. At some point, hopefully, in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable,” he wrote in a post on Truth Social.

Two days later, the White House clarified that the total tariff on China stood at 145 per cent. The number came in addition to a 20 per cent levy put into place earlier this year over China’s role in fentanyl trafficking. The US president imposed a 125 per cent charge designed to both counter America’s trade deficit with China and punish Beijing for retaliating against US import taxes.

Beijing has also set a retaliatory tariff of 125 per cent on US imports.

Meanwhile, China on Wednesday said that its economy grew a forecast-beating 5.4 per cent in the first quarter as exporters rushed to get goods out of factory gates ahead of the new US tariffs.

Beijing’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said that “according to preliminary estimates, the gross domestic product in the first quarter… (was) up by 5.4 percent year on year at constant prices”.

“The foundation for sustained economic recovery and growth is yet to be consolidated,” the NBS said, adding there was a need for “more proactive and effective macro policies”.