Trump Vents Frustration Over Stalled China Trade Talks — 'Extremely Hard To Make Deal With’ Xi

President Donald Trump’s recent Truth Social comments have confirmed that the U.S.-China trade talks have hit a rough patch. 

Writing on his social-media handle early Wednesday, Trump said, “I like President XI [Jinping] of China, have, and always will, but he is VERY TOUGH, AND EXTREMELY HARD TO MAKE A DEAL WITH!!!”

The president flagged a pushback last Friday when he said China had “totally violated its agreement with us,” without giving details of the nature of the violations. 

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said later that China reneged on some non-tariff barriers agreed as part of the Geneva bilateral agreement announced in mid-May.

Following Trump’s outbursts on Friday, a Chinese Ministry of Commerce Department spokesperson said that the U.S. had acted in a responsible manner in safeguarding the Geneva consensus. The spokesperson blamed the U.S. for “successively introducing several discriminatory restrictive measures against China.”

The spokesperson noted issues such as the U.S’ ban on export of artificial intelligence chips and certain chip design software, and the revocation of Chinese student visas.

China reupped its misgivings yet again this week. While meeting with David Perdue, the new U.S. ambassador to China, in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the country firmly opposed its trading partner’s “negative measures.”

In a strongly worded statement, Wang said the measures infringed upon China’s legitimate rights and interests.

The key Chinese diplomat also “stressed the need to create necessary conditions for the return of bilateral relations to the right track.”

Separately, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Tuesday that China has a choice regarding whether it wants to be a reliable trading partner or not to the rest of the economies, according to a Bloomberg report.

The Trump official spoke via a video link at the American Swiss Foundation Leadership Summit in Zurich.

He also recommended that China should deemphasize manufacturing and focus on consumption-driven growth to avert the risk of a property market collapse.

The finger-pointing by the two countries has come despite more than one Trump administration expressing hopes for an imminent phone conversation between the U.S. President and Xi.

The  SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) is up 2% for the year, and the iShares MSCI China ETF (MCHI) has gained about 15%. 

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