Washington (AFP) – US President Donald Trump said Friday he no longer feels a summit is necessary with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping this month, slamming Beijing for hostile trade practices and threatening “massive” tariffs.
“Some very strange things are happening in China! They are becoming very hostile,” Trump said in a long post on Truth Social that railed against China imposing export controls on rare earth minerals—a critical component in modern technology. “I was to meet President Xi in two weeks, at APEC, in South Korea, but now there seems to be no reason to do so,” he added in the post, which he sent as he headed for a medical check-up at a military hospital near Washington.
Trump said China had sent letters to countries around the world detailing export controls on “each and every element of production having to do with Rare Earths, and virtually anything else they can think of, even if it’s not manufactured in China.” “There is no way that China should be allowed to hold the World ‘captive,’ but that seems to have been their plan for quite some time,” Trump wrote, adding that Beijing had been “lying in wait” despite what he characterized as six months of good bilateral relations.
Rare earth elements are critical to manufacturing everything from smartphones and electric vehicles to military hardware and renewable energy technology. China dominates global production and processing of these materials.
“One of the Policies that we are calculating at this moment is a massive increase of Tariffs on Chinese products coming into the United States of America,” Trump said, adding that he was considering “many other countermeasures.” Trump said other countries had contacted the United States expressing anger over China’s “great Trade hostility, which came out of nowhere.” The president added that he had not spoken to Xi about the matter. He characterized China’s approach as building monopoly positions on magnets and other elements, calling it “a rather sinister and hostile move, to say the least.”
© 2024 AFP
