President Donald Trump hinted on Thursday that the back-and-forth tariff increases between the U.S. and China, which had rattled markets, might be coming to an end. He also suggested that a resolution regarding the future of the social media platform TikTok could be delayed.
“I don’t want them to go higher because at a certain point, you reach a point where people just stop buying,” Trump told reporters at the White House, discussing the tariffs.
“So, I might not want to go higher, or I might even want to dial it back. You know, you want people to keep buying, and there’s a limit to how much they’ll take.”
Trump’s remarks signaled a growing reluctance to impose sharply higher, across-the-board tariffs on numerous countries, especially after the market’s turbulent reaction to their initial implementation on April 2.
The president had initially applied 10% tariffs to the majority of goods entering the country but postponed the implementation of higher levies, pending further negotiations.
However, he did increase tariffs on Chinese imports, which now stand at 145%, following Beijing’s retaliatory measures. Last week, China stated that it “will not respond” to a “numbers game with tariffs,” indicating that overall rates wouldn’t be escalated further.
Trump mentioned that China had been in contact since the tariffs were put in place and expressed optimism about reaching an agreement.
While the two nations are communicating, sources disclosed to Reuters that the sort of fluid, high-level talks necessary for a deal have been largely absent.
When speaking to reporters, Trump repeatedly avoided specifying the details of the discussions between the countries or confirming whether they directly involved Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Trump has consistently extended the legal deadline for China-based ByteDance to divest its U.S. assets of the popular short-video app TikTok, used by 170 million Americans. On Thursday, he indicated that a spin-off deal would likely be postponed until the trade issue is resolved.
“We have a deal for TikTok, but it’s contingent on what happens with China. So, we’ll just hold off on the deal until we see how this whole thing plays out,” Trump said.
