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    In Trade War Clash With Trump, China Refuses to Take the Bait

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    The Trump administration has been saying that the two countries are engaged in talks to resolve the dispute, but Beijing asserts that no such discussions are happening.If the trade war between China and the United States is a game of high-stakes brinkmanship, it is currently a game that Beijing is not willing to play.Faced with growing claims by President Trump and administration officials that the two countries are engaged in talks and that a deal could be reached in a matter of weeks, China’s Foreign Ministry pushed back forcefully on Friday by posting on X: “China and the U.S. are NOT having any consultation or negotiation. The U.S. should stop creating confusion.”The post came hours after a foreign ministry spokesman, Guo Jiakun, said the United States was “misleading the public.” A day earlier, Mr. Guo called the rumors of talks “fake news.”The response was the latest sign that China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, intends to hold firm in his standoff with Mr. Trump, sensing that his position is strengthening. Beijing is betting that it can stomach the pain of a trade war better than the Trump administration can because of U.S. political pressure and volatility on Wall Street, analysts say.“The Chinese are not eager to climb down the ladder,” said Yun Sun, the director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington. “They see Trump as wanting to climb down and are happy to let him stew in his own juice.”Ms. Sun said Beijing will not come to the negotiation table without any U.S. concessions or a good-will gesture. That could include scaling back tariffs, or making clear that Mr. Trump is reaching out to Mr. Xi first.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump’s Tariffs Bump Into Reality as Economic Strategy Wavers

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    After weeks of bluster and escalation, President Trump blinked. Then he blinked again. And again.He backed off his threat to fire the Federal Reserve chairman. His Treasury secretary, acutely aware that the S&P 500 was down 10 percent since Mr. Trump was inaugurated, signaled he was looking for an offramp to avoid an intensifying trade war with China.And now Mr. Trump has acknowledged that the 145 percent tariffs on Chinese goods that he announced just two weeks ago are not sustainable. He was prompted in part by the warnings of senior executives from Target and Walmart and other large American retailers that consumers would see price surges and empty shelves for some imported goods within a few weeks.Mr. Trump’s encounter with reality amounted to a vivid case study in the political and economic costs of striking the hardest of hard lines. He entered this trade war imagining a simpler era in which imposing punishing tariffs would force companies around the world to build factories in the United States.He ends the month discovering that the world of modern supply chains is far more complex than he bargained for, and that it is far from clear his “beautiful” tariffs will have the effects he predicted.This is not, of course, the explanation of the events of the past few days that the White House is putting out. Mr. Trump’s aides insist that his maximalist demands have been an act of strategic brilliance, forcing 90 countries to line up to deal with the president. It may take months, they acknowledge, to see the concessions that will result. But bending the global trade system to American will, they say, takes time.“Have some patience and you will see,” the president’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters on Wednesday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Team Races to Form Trade Deals After Tariffs Sow Global Chaos

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    The president’s threats of tariffs have brought countries like Japan, South Korea and India rushing to negotiate, but they have sown chaos with bigger trading partners like China.For a president who advertises himself as a paramount deal maker, the next 11 weeks will be a pivotal test, as his advisers race to accomplish what no other administration has done before and reach dozens of individual trade deals with other governments.President Trump has promised big gains for American trade, and officials from Japan, South Korea, India and elsewhere have been pushing for agreements as they look to forestall punishing tariffs. But trade experts say the administration has set up a seemingly impossible task, given that traditional trade deals typically take months or years to negotiate.Mr. Trump has tried to use tariffs as leverage to notch quick agreements, and his trade adviser, Peter Navarro, has promised “90 deals in 90 days.” But the levies are creating chaos and financial pain for many businesses, and they have not brought some of America’s largest trading partners, including China, to the table.Some U.S. trade with China has ground to a halt after the countries imposed triple-digit tariffs on each others’ products, and a wave of bankruptcies, especially among small U.S. businesses that rely on Chinese imports, appears to be looming if the trade barriers are maintained.Some Trump officials recognize that the situation with China is not sustainable and have been strategizing how to reduce the tariffs between the countries, two people familiar with the discussions said. Another person familiar with the discussions said administration officials were concerned about the hit to the stock market, which has experienced intense volatility and some of its worst trading days in years. The S&P 500 is down 10 percent since Mr. Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.Speaking from the Oval Office on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said he wanted to make a deal with China. But he said what happens with his tariffs on China “depends on them.” He denied any concerns about what the tariffs are doing to small businesses, but said that the high tariff “basically means China isn’t doing any business with us.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    IMF Expects Trump’s Tariffs Will Slow Global Economic Growth

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    President Trump’s trade war is expected to slow economic growth across the globe this year, in large part because his aggressive use of tariffs is likely to weigh heavily on the United States, the world’s largest economy.The economic projections were released on Tuesday by the International Monetary Fund, in the wake of Mr. Trump’s decision to raise tariffs to levels not seen since the Great Depression.The president has imposed a 10 percent tariff on nearly all imports, along with punishing levies of at least 145 percent on Chinese goods that come into the United States. Mr. Trump also imposed what he calls “reciprocal” tariffs on America’s largest trading partners, including the European Union, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, although he has paused those until July as his administration works to secure bilateral trade deals.Mr. Trump’s approach has created paralyzing uncertainty for U.S. companies that export products abroad or rely on foreign inputs for their goods, dampening output just as economies around the world were stabilizing after years of crippling inflation. China and Canada have already retaliated against Mr. Trump’s tariffs with their own trade barriers, and the European Union has said it is prepared to increase levies if the United States goes ahead with its planned 20 percent tax.The World Economic Outlook report projects that global output will slow to 2.8 percent this year from 3.3 percent in 2024. In January, the fund forecast that growth would hold steady in 2025.The I.M.F. also expects output to be slower next year than it previously predicted.Much of the downgrade for this year can be attributed to the impact of the tariffs on the U.S. economy, which was already poised to lose momentum this year. The I.M.F. expects U.S. output to slow to 1.8 percent in 2025, down from 2.8 percent last year. That is nearly a full percentage point slower than the 2.7 percent growth that the I.M.F. forecast for the United States in January, when it was the strongest economy in the world.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    After Trump Spares Apple, Other Businesses Want a Tariffs Break

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    Retail executives huddled with the president amid fears that tariffs could result in higher prices.When President Trump’s steep tariffs threatened to send the price of iPhones soaring, Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, called the White House — and soon secured a reprieve for his company and the broader electronics industry.Almost immediately, top aides to Mr. Trump insisted they had not strayed from their promise to apply import taxes across the economy with minimal, if any, exceptions. But the carve-out still caught the attention of many businesses nationwide, igniting a fresh scramble for similar help in the throes of a global trade war.Top lobbying groups for the agriculture, construction, manufacturing, retail and technology industries have pleaded with the White House in recent days to relax more of its tariffs, with many arguing that there are some products they must import simply because they are too expensive or impractical to produce in the United States.On Monday, executives from retailers including Home Depot, Target and Walmart became the latest to raise their concerns directly with Mr. Trump, as the industry continues to brace for the possibility that steep taxes on imports could result in price increases for millions of American consumers.“We had a productive meeting with President Trump and our retail peers to discuss the path forward on trade, and we remain committed to delivering value for American consumers,” a Target spokesman, Jim Joice, said in a statement.Doug McMillon, Walmart’s chief executive, has previously acknowledged the many “variables” surrounding Mr. Trump’s tariffs and retail prices. A spokeswoman for Walmart confirmed the meeting on Monday, describing the conversation in a statement as “productive.” Other companies did not respond to requests for comment.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The Business Playbook for Tariff Chaos

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    President Trump’s trade war is forcing companies to cut costs, raise prices, shrink profits, discontinue products and find other suppliers.Shock. That was the first response to the Trump administration’s barrage of tariffs.Businesses that rely on imported products expected duties, which President Trump had promised. Just not this high, this universal or this sudden, with almost no time to adjust. A 145 percent tariff on all Chinese products, after all, is more like a trade wall than a mere barrier. But shock is settling into reality, and corporate leaders are trying to manage. Here are the main tacks that businesses are taking — at least for now, given that whatever duties the White House declares today may change tomorrow.Move out of China, preferably yesterdayFor many importers, this round of tariffs isn’t as painful as it might have been eight years ago. Mr. Trump’s first trade war, in 2018, while milder, pushed many to diversify their sourcing beyond China. The Covid-19 pandemic sent yet another signal that dependence on a single market, however cheap and efficient, is unwise.For William Westendorf, the chief executive of the medical supply distributor Air-Tite Products, the final straw was a 100 percent tariff on Chinese-made syringes imposed by the Biden administration last fall. He sent a staff member to scour Europe for a factory that could meet the Food and Drug Administration’s exacting standards.After six months of hunting and hoop-jumping — and with Chinese syringes now tariffed at 245 percent total — Mr. Westendorf has a shipment on the way from Turkey. It’s lucky timing, because factories outside of China are getting flooded with orders.“It’s not something you can do real quickly because of the regulatory environment,” Mr. Westendorf said. “Fortunately, we were there early.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Peter Navarro: The Architect of Trump’s Tariffs

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    On a clear day last July in Miami, Peter Navarro emerged from four months in federal prison, where he’d been imprisoned for contempt of Congress. Mr. Navarro had refused to testify in an investigation of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, an action he described as a defense of the Constitution.Just hours after his release from prison, Mr. Navarro flew to Milwaukee to speak at the Republican National Convention in support of Donald J. Trump’s re-election.“They convicted me, they jailed me. Guess what? They did not break me,” he said that night, punctuating each word as the crowd roared. It was an exercise in loyalty to Mr. Trump that seems to have paid off.For much of Mr. Trump’s first term, Mr. Navarro, a trade adviser, had been sidelined, mocked and minimized by other officials who saw his protectionist views on trade as factually wrong and dangerous for the country.But in the second Trump administration, Mr. Navarro, 75, an economist and trade skeptic, has been newly empowered. He returned to government more confident in his revanchist vision for the American economy, more dismissive of his critics, and with more than a dozen trade-related executive orders already drafted, many of which the president has since signed. Mr. Trump also came back to Washington more determined to finally realize the trade views he has held for decades, that an unfair trading system was ripping America off and needed to be radically changed.Why Peter Navarro switched sidesAna Swanson explains how China’s entry into the World Trade Organization turned Navarro, a Southern California professor, into President Trump’s biggest trade warrior.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More