Duties, US and China working for talks between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping

Following the US president's accusations against China of violating tariff agreements, Trump administration and Chinese government officials are working to arrange talks between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, CNN reported, citing White House sources. According to the sources, new talks are needed to restart the tariff negotiations between the two countries.

"China has violated its agreement with the United States" on tariffs. This is the accusation made by Donald Trump against Beijing. "Two weeks ago China was in grave economic danger. I saw what was going on and I didn't like it: I made a quick deal with China to save it from what I thought was a bad situation,' Trump explained referring to the preliminary agreement on tariffs and pointing out that the signed deal was violated by China.

In a post published on the Truth Social platform, Trump recalled that high tariffs imposed during his presidency had made it 'almost impossible' for China to export goods to the US market, causing - in his view - factory closures and 'civil unrest'. "We went, in effect, into 'total withdrawal' from China, and it was devastating for them," Trump wrote, revealing that he then quickly negotiated a deal to avoid "a very serious situation" for the Chinese economy. Trump claims that the deal led to immediate stabilisation, but now accuses China of not honouring the pacts. "So much for being the good guy!" he wrote. But, the US president then concluded, 'the bad news is that China, perhaps unsurprisingly to some, has completely violated its agreement with us. Goodbye Mr. Nice Guy!"

Trump's latest polemical attack on China on the trade relations front comes at the same time as the Wall Street Journal reports that the White House is working on a plan B for tariffs after the US Court of International Trade declared them illegal. According to reports in the US business daily, the Trump administration is considering a two-stage plan. The first is a stopgap solution to impose tariffs on sectors of the world economy under a never-before-used provision of the Trade Act of 1974, which includes a clause allowing tariffs of up to 15% for 150 days to address global imbalances. This would allow the administration time to develop ad hoc plans for each trading partner based on a different provision of the same law.

The second step involves a lengthy notification process that the administration, however, considers more legally defensible and has been used in the past, including to impose tariffs on China during Trump's first term. The options under consideration had already been considered in the first weeks of the administration, but it was then preferred to impose the tariffs by resorting to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, never before used for tariffs. Resorting now to a different law to impose duties presents risks for the administration, however, as it may be seen by the courts as an admission of defeat in the use of the 1997 law.