China Rejects Trump's Accusation That It Violated Trade Truce

New York Times

2 days ago

China said on Monday that the United States had 'severely undermined' the trade truce the two countries reached last month, striking back against President Trump's accusations that it was violating the terms of their agreement.
In a statement, China's Ministry of Commerce called Mr. Trump's attacks on social media last week 'baseless.' He had accused Beijing of failing to live up to its end of their trade deal, a 90-day rollback of tariffs and other trade barriers to give the two countries more time to negotiate and prevent an all-out trade war.
China's commerce ministry said it had continued to honor its agreement responsibly and accused the United States of 'erroneous practices' by introducing a series of 'discriminatory restrictive measures.' These included restrictions on the sale of chip design software to China and barring American companies from using or financing artificial intelligence chips from the Chinese technology giant Huawei.
It also criticized the Trump administration's announcement that it planned to 'aggressively revoke' the visas of Chinese students and that it would enhance scrutiny of all future applications from China, including Hong Kong.
'The U.S. side has unilaterally escalated new economic and trade frictions, exacerbating the uncertainty and instability of bilateral economic and trade relations,' the ministry wrote in its statement. 'Instead of reflecting on its own actions, it has turned the blame onto China.'
China said it would take measures to 'safeguard its legitimate rights and interests' if the United States continued to harm Chinese interests.
The growing confrontation over the fragile trade truce between the world's two largest economies has raised questions about whether they can strike a permanent accord within the 90-day deadline.
The United States has grown increasingly concerned about access to rare earth magnets, which are crucial for producing cars, semiconductors, aircraft and other vital items. China maintains a near monopoly on the production of rare earth metals.
American companies' ability to keep factories running could be in jeopardy without a sufficient supply of those magnets.
Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative who negotiated the deal along with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, said during a Friday appearance on CNBC that China was 'slow-rolling their compliance' and that the flow of some critical minerals has not returned to levels that American officials were expecting.
The agreement, announced on May 12, offered a temporary reprieve to the escalating trade tensions between the two largest economies. The United States had pushed tariffs on Chinese imports to 145 percent and China responded by raising import duties on American products to 125 percent.
Under the truce, the United States agreed to lower its tariffs to 30 percent, while China cut its import tax to 10 percent for 90 days.
Amy Chang Chien contributed reporting from Taipei.