(WASHINGTON D.C.) — President Donald Trump has said that there is now no reason to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and that he is weighing “massive increases” in tariffs on Chinese imports, according to a social media post on Friday.
The president’s comments follow the Chinese government’s announcement of new trade limits on crucial rare earth elements and related technologies. According to a Truth Social post from Trump, China has become “very hostile” on trade matters and noted that he was set “to meet President Xi in two weeks, at APEC, in South Korea, but now there seems to be no reason to do so.”
In his post, President Trump said in part that “Some very strange things are happening in China! They are becoming very hostile, and sending letters to Countries throughout the World, that they want to impose Export Controls on each and every element of production having to do with Rare Earths, and virtually anything else they can think of, even if it’s not manufactured in China. Nobody has ever seen anything like this but, essentially, it would “clog” the Markets, and make life difficult for virtually every Country in the World, especially for China.”
U.S. officials plan to meet with their Chinese counterparts for further talks in November, where rare earth elements are likely to take center stage again, along with talk of soybeans being a major point of discussion. President Trump added later in his post on Friday that the administration is considering countermeasures and policies including “a massive increase of Tariffs on Chinese products coming into the United States of America.”
We discuss the immediate market impacts on Friday’s trade with Arlan Suderman, Chief Commodities Economist at StoneX, in our Market Talk Midday Commentary below: