U.S. President Donald Trump has indicated a possible conclusion to the retaliatory tariff hikes between the U.S. and China that have unsettled markets, suggesting that a decision regarding the future of the social media platform TikTok may need to be postponed.
“I don’t want them to go higher because at a certain point you make it where people don’t buy,” Trump told reporters at the White House regarding tariffs. “So, I may not want to go higher or I may not want to even go up to that level. I may want to go to less because you know you want people to buy and, at a certain point, people aren’t gonna buy.”
Reduced appetite for tariff increases
Trump’s remarks further highlight a waning desire for sharply higher across-the-board tariffs on numerous countries, especially following a violent market reaction to their introduction on April 2, Reuters reported. The Republican president imposed 10 percent tariffs on most goods entering the country but postponed the implementation of higher levies pending negotiations. Nevertheless, he raised rates on Chinese imports, which now total 145 percent, after Beijing retaliated with its own countermeasures. Last week, China stated it would “not respond” to a “numbers game with tariffs,” signaling that across-the-board rates would not increase further. Trump mentioned that China had been in contact since the tariffs were imposed, expressing optimism about the potential for a deal.
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Limited high-level exchanges between U.S. and China
While the two nations remain in contact, sources informed Reuters that substantial, high-level discussions that could lead to an agreement have been noticeably absent. In conversations with reporters, Trump consistently avoided detailing the nature of talks between the countries or whether they directly involved Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trump has repeatedly extended a legal deadline for China-based ByteDance to divest the U.S. assets of the popular short video app, TikTok, which is used by 170 million Americans. On Thursday, he indicated that a spin-off deal would likely be postponed until the trade issues are resolved. “We have a deal for TikTok, but it’ll be subject to China so we’ll just delay the deal ’til this thing works out one way or the other,” Trump stated.
China dismisses U.S. tariff proposals as a ‘numbers game’
On Thursday, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that it will disregard U.S. President Donald Trump’s “tariff numbers game” after the White House suggested that Chinese exports could face tariffs as high as 245 percent. The White House provided the latest tariff rates in a fact sheet released earlier this week.
This fact sheet outlines Trump’s recent 125 percent tariff and the earlier 20 percent tariff imposed in response to Beijing’s alleged failure to control fentanyl exports to the U.S. It also includes potential duties ranging from 7.5 percent to 100 percent that could be implemented following national security reviews launched under the Trade Act of 1974. Beijing’s comments on Thursday echoed those from the Ministry of Finance last week, which described Trump’s escalating tariffs as a “joke” due to their lack of “any economic significance.”
Impact on global trade and economic growth projections
China’s tariffs on U.S. goods currently stand at 125 percent, but Beijing has also enacted other non-tariff punitive measures, such as restricting the release of Hollywood films. The World Trade Organization (WTO) reported on Wednesday that the volume of global trade is projected to decline by 0.2 percent in 2025 under current conditions—“nearly three percentage points lower” than a low-tariff baseline scenario. The spillover effect of Trump’s “reciprocal tariffs,” most of which have been paused until July, could lead to an “even sharper decline of 1.5 percent in global goods trade and hurt export-oriented least-developed countries,” according to the WTO. Additionally, the UN’s Trade and Development (UNCTAD) office has revised its global growth forecast downward from 2.5 percent to 2.3 percent in 2025, noting that growth below a threshold of 2.5 percent often signals a global recession.
