Washington, May 30 (EFE).– President Donald Trump on Friday accused China of “totally” violating the trade agreement it had reached with the United States to reduce the high tariffs imposed by Washington.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said the deal with the US had helped China avoid “a very bad situation.”
Trump did not specify in his post how China had allegedly breached the agreement, which had been signed just two weeks earlier.
It was the second such deal the Trump istration reached with a foreign government following the imposition of global tariffs, the first being with the United Kingdom.
“The bad news is that China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US. So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!,” Trump wrote on the social media network, using his trade mark all caps to lay the stress.
The US president said China was in “grave economic danger” two weeks ago after the “very high tariffs I set made it virtually impossible for China to TRADE” into the US market.
“We went, in effect, COLD TURKEY with China, and it was devastating for them. Many factories closed and there was, to put it mildly, ‘civil unrest,’” he said.
“I saw what was happening and didn’t like it, for them, not for us. I made a FAST DEAL with China in order to save them from what I thought was going to be a very bad situation, and I didn’t want to see that happen.”
He said the deal had “quickly stabilized” everything and “China got back to business as usual. Everybody was happy.”
As part of the agreement, the two economic powers had agreed to a temporary truce in their tariff war.
US tariffs on Chinese goods were reduced from 145 percent to 30 percent, while China lowered its tariffs on American products from 125 percent to 10 percent.
Under the of the deal, these reduced tariff rates would remain in place for three months, during which delegations from both countries were expected to negotiate a more comprehensive and long-term pact.
However, analysts remain skeptical that such talks will lead to a full reconciliation between the two sides.
Trump’s latest statements add further uncertainty to the already fragile trade talks.
The US has also announced plans to revoke visas for Chinese students with ties to the Chinese Communist Party, a move that could affect thousands of students currently in the US. Beijing has denounced it as a “discriminatory” step. EFE
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