Trump Is Begging China to Make a Deal Over Tariffs
Donald Trump’s administration has been begging for a call from Chinese President Xi Jinping—despite Trump’s claims that his reciprocal tariff policy sent nations scrambling to cut deals with him. But instead of fostering negotiations, it seems their desperation only made things worse.
Beijing announced Friday that it was raising tariffs on U.S. goods from 84 percent to 125 percent, following confirmation from the White House the day before that it was placing tariffs of 145 percent on Chinese goods.
Ahead of Thursday’s announcement, the Trump administration had attempted to talk Chinese officials out of levying more retaliatory tariffs, and advised them to have their president give Trump a call, according to CNN.
Instead of entreating Xi to a meeting, U.S. officials awoke Friday to even more tariffs, and no request to begin negotiations.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer confirmed Friday morning that the U.S. had not yet begun talks with Chinese officials to walk back the tariffs.
The White House has claimed to have started negotiations with officials from 75 countries—though it has refused to divulge which ones—in response to Trump’s reciprocal tariff policy. China has been a notable holdout, and was therefore made exempt from Trump’s 90-day pause on new rates going into effect.
The Trump administration has been saying pretty much the same thing to China for roughly two months, insisting that Beijing must make the first move, but with no luck. Trump claimed Wednesday that “China wants to make a deal. They just don’t know how quite to go about it,” noting that the Chinese were a “proud” people.
China’s Finance Ministry released a statement Friday saying that it wouldn’t fall for Trump’s blatant bullying.
“Even if the U.S. continues to impose higher tariffs, it will no longer make economic sense and will become a joke in the history of world economy,” the ministry said in the statement, which CNBC translated.
“With tariff rates at the current level, there is no longer a market for U.S. goods imported into China,” the statement said, adding that “if the U.S. government continues to increase tariffs on China, Beijing will ignore.”
Donald Trump’s plan to acquire Greenland is very real, and it apparently involves convincing the country to hand itself over to U.S. control.
The White House National Security Council has met “several times” to make Trump’s desires for the arctic island a reality, reported The New York Times, which spoke to a U.S. official who said the council had sent “specific instructions to multiple arms of the government.” But those instructions apparently never specified the use of military force.
Instead, the effort is driven by a massive P.R. campaign consisting of spending federal dollars on advertising and social media campaigns with hopes of persuading Greenland’s 57,000 residents to basically annex themselves for America.
The prospect of that happening, however, is laughable. Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark, has not taken kindly to Trump and his associates’ sudden interest in acquiring their land. After months of heavy pressure from the Trump family, including an embarrassing stunt in which Donald Trump Jr. reportedly convinced homeless residents to wear MAGA merchandise in exchange for food, and an effort in the U.S. Congress to rename the territory “Red, White, and Blueland,” Greenland’s various political parties set aside their differences in March to unite under a singular goal: opposing U.S. aggression.
“We don’t want to be Americans. No, we don’t want to be Danes. We want to be Greenlanders, and we want our own independence in the future,” Demokraatit Party leader Jens-Frederik Nielsen told Sky News the night his party won a decisive majority in Parliament, making him prime minister. “And we want to build our own country by ourselves.”
Other Greenland officials have been more blunt. In January, the chair of Greenland’s parliamentary Foreign and Security Policy Committee Pipaluk Lynge warned the U.S. not to “invade” the nation, which is largely composed of Indigenous tribes, in light of America’s historical treatment of Alaska’s Indigenous population.
A late January poll by pollster Verian found that 85 percent of Greenland’s residents do not want to become part of the United States. Just 6 percent were in favor of the switch, while 8 percent were undecided, according to The Guardian.
That disinterest became more apparent in late March, when second lady Usha Vance’s trip around Greenland was gutted and canceled after American representatives were spotted walking around Nuuk, the island’s capital, failing to find residents who would be interested in a visit from the vice president’s wife.
But none of that has thwarted Trump’s interest.
“We need [Greenland] for international security,” Trump said during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte last month. “That whole area is becoming very important, for a lot of reasons. The routes are very direct to Asia, to Russia, and you have ships all over the place. We have to have protection.
“So, we’re going to have to make a deal on that, and Denmark is not able to do that, and you know, Denmark is very far away, and really has nothing to do. What happened? A boat landed there 200 years ago or something and they say they have rights to it, I don’t know if that’s true, I don’t think it is, actually,” the apparent anti-colonialist activist added.
In an address to Congress last month, Trump clarified his intention: “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.”
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