27 November 2018•Update: 28 November 2018
By Ovunc Kutlu
ANKARA
U.S. President Donald Trump placed added jitters on already strained relations between the world's two biggest economies by threatening China with tariffs just days before a G20 meeting.
The Trump administration is ready to increase tariffs on $200 billion of goods imported from China to 25 percent, from 10 percent Jan. 1, he told The Wall Street Journal on Monday. He said it is "highly unlikely" he will hold off the rate increase.
He stressed if U.S.-China trade negotiations would not resolve favorably for Washington, he could extend tariffs on more Chinese goods.
“If we don’t make a deal, then I’m going to put the $267 billion additional on," he said, four days before meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in Argentina during the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires.
Trump's remarks could easily erode progress made by American and Chinese officials in recent weeks on bilateral trade relations.
During the summit, the U.S. is expected to sign the trade deal with its neighbors, which is now known as the U.S.-Mexico-Canada-Agreement, after Trump terminated the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement in August.
He resorted to threats in order to bring Mexico and Canada to the negotiation table and said he could implement tariffs on the European Union countries in trade relations as well.
"I happen to be a tariff person," he told the newspaper.
His approach could also hurt the world's most valuable company, Apple, and some U.S. firms are already considering moving factories out of China and back home.
“What I’d advise is for them to build factories in the United States and to make the product here. And they have a lot of other alternatives," Trump said.
He suggested tariffs could be extended to iPhones and laptops imported from China.
“Maybe. Maybe. Depends on what the rate is,” he said, “I mean, I can make it 10 percent and people could stand that very easily.”
The president also took an aim at the World Trade Organization.
He said the regulatory body for international trade is "absolutely unfair" to the U.S. "They’re going to have to change their ways.
Trump also sees the rising value of the American dollar as a threat against his objective of lowering the U.S.'s trade and blasted the Federal Reserve.
“I think the Fed right now is a much bigger problem than China,” Trump said.
The central bank has increased interest rates three times this and is expected to raise rates again in December.
