As US President Donald Trump talked up meetings with President Xi Jinping and vowed on Monday to reach a deal with China, analysts said a comprehensive trade agreement was still unlikely in the near term despite the latest in a series of conciliatory signals from the US side.
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“When we finish our meetings in South Korea,” Trump said, referring to a planned summit with Xi before or during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum this month, “China and I will have a really fair and really great trade deal together. I want them to buy soybeans.
“I think we’re going to end up having a fantastic deal with China. It’s going to be fantastic for both countries, and it’s going to be fantastic for the entire world.”
However, the US president also warned on Monday that he would impose an additional 100 per cent tariff on Chinese goods if negotiations fail.
Trump’s remarks on the state of trade relations coincided with a White House visit from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, shortly after the signing of a multibillion-dollar agreement between Washington and Canberra on rare earth elements that is aimed at curbing China’s near-monopoly on the minerals’ supply chain.
A new trade agreement is unlikely to be reached any time soon – certainly not in 2025
The remarks signalled a willingness by Trump to continue negotiations rather than escalate the trade war with China, according to Zhuang Bo, a global macro strategist at Loomis Sayles Investment Asia, an affiliate of Natixis Investment Managers.
