White House expects retaliation from China, stresses ongoing talks

The Trump administration is expecting retaliation from China after imposing a new round of steep tariffs but is stressing that negotiations are ongoing.

The U.S. and China seemed poised to reach a deal on their yearlong trade war last week until President Trump raised tariffs from 10 percent to 25 percent on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports on Friday after a breakdown of negotiations.

“The problem is two weeks ago in China, there was backtracking by the Chinese,” White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on “Fox News Sunday.”

{mosads}Chinese negotiators reportedly tried to reverse their vows to address issues such as theft of trade secrets and intellectual property.

Now that Trump has imposed the long-threatened tariffs bump and is considering extending it to more Chinese goods in the future, members of the administration expect retaliation.

“The expected countermeasures have not yet materialized. We may know more today or even this evening or tomorrow,” Kudlow said.

He added that the potential additional tariffs may take months to implement.

“Call it a couple months. Call it three months. I don’t know. … That will take some time, and then of course the president is going to have to make the final decision on that,” he said.

Kudlow added that Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are likely to meet in June and that negotiations are ongoing.

“The talks will continue, and I will say this, the G20 meeting in Japan toward the end of June, the chances President Trump and President Xi will get together at that meeting are probably pretty good,” he said.

Kudlow, United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have been in discussions with Chinese negotiators for weeks, meeting in both Beijing and Washington in attempts to iron out a deal.

Chinese state media said Sunday that officials there are open to continuing those discussions but will not yield on issues important to state security, according to Reuters.

Several Democrats have been critical of the Trump’s use of tariffs as a negotiation tactic.

“Wielding tariffs like a cudgel because it makes the president look tough? That only hurts American families,” Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), a 2020 presidential candidate, told Fox on Sunday, explaining that farmers are bearing the weight of Chinese tariffs.

“Putting tariffs on our allies, putting tariffs on even the Chinese that are actually taxes on American producers, American farmers … I think [is] completely the wrong way of doing this,” Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), another 2020 hopeful, said on CBS’s “Face The Nation.”

Trump has maintained in tweets that his new round of tariffs will be paid for by China and will benefit the U.S. 

Kudlow contradicted the president Sunday, agreeing that China does not pay the tariffs.

“It’s not China that pays tariffs. It’s the American importers, the American companies that pay what in effect is a tax increase and oftentimes passes it on to U.S. consumers,” Fox News anchor Chris Wallace said to Kudlow.