President Donald Trump told White House reporters that he had multiple conversations with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday, but did not mention whether these conversations occurred before or after the trade war kicked off between the U.S. and China.
According to Fox News, the comments were made before Trump boarded Marine One to travel to Rome for Pope Francis’ funeral, and when asked for details Trump said, “I’ll let you know at the appropriate time.”
The tariffs war has been a back and forth between China and the U.S., with Trump putting 145% tariffs on imported goods from China, while China has responded with retaliatory tariffs of 125%.
During a Time interview on April 22, Trump was asked if he would call Xi if he didn’t call Trump, to which the president responded with a “no,” when asked a second time, Trump said “nope.”
When asked if Xi had called, Trump said he had.
“He’s called. And I don’t think that’s a sign of weakness on his behalf,” Trump said.
Trump was then asked if it would be perceived as a sign of weakness if Trump called Xi and was asked what Xi said during his call.
“If people want to–well, we all want to make deals,” Trump said. “But I am this giant store. It’s a giant, beautiful store, and everybody wants to go shopping there. And on behalf of the American people, I own the store, and I set prices, and I’ll say, if you want to shop here, this is what you have to pay.”
When asked if the period of uncertainly will be over in the next four weeks, Trump said he doesn’t think there are any.
“I don’t think there’s any uncertainty there,” Trump said. “The only thing—they have an option. They don’t have to shop here. They can go someplace else, but there aren’t too many places they can go. You understand what I mean though?”
Trump also agreed with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s comments about the situation with China being unsustainable.
“Well, no, they won’t do any business here, because at 145% it’s going to be very rare that you see business,” Trump said. “Oh, there’s a number at which they will feel comfortable. Yeah. But you can’t let them make a trillion dollars from us. You can’t let them make $750 billion. See, that’s really what’s not sustainable when China makes a trillion dollars, or a trillion one, when we have almost $2 trillion worth of, I call it loss. Some people don’t, but a lot of it’s loss. I say, when you have a trade deficit of $2 trillion I consider that loss.”
