𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

US president Donald Trump yesterday said that 10 per cent is a tariff floor, or pretty close, and that there could be a couple of exceptions.

Mr Trump, who said he was comfortable with the tariffs on China, has suggested that a deal with Beijing could be in the offing, too, heaping praise on president Xi Jinping despite their differences over trade.

But there were no signs that the world’s two largest economies were ready to back down.

“The president made it very clear: When the United States is punched, he will punch back harder,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

President Xi Jinping told Spain’s prime minister that China and the EU must join together in defending globalisation and opposing “unilateral acts of bullying”, in a jab at US president Donald Trump.

Mr Xi, in his first public comments on the issue since Mr Trump launched his tariff offensive last week, said there could be “no winners” in any trade war, and he said the EU had a key role to play in ensuring global economic stability.

China has always regarded the EU as an important pole in a multipolar world, and is one of the major countries firmly supporting the EU’s unity and growth,” Mr Xi told the Spanish prime minister.

“China and the EU should fulfill their international responsibilities, jointly safeguard the trend of economic globalisation and the international trade environment, and jointly oppose unilateral acts of bullying,” Xi added.

US president Donald Trump has insisted that his policy was “doing really well” despite China hiking levies on American goods to 125 per cent in a tit-for-tat response amid the ongoing trade war between the two biggest economies.

China’s tariff hike, hitting back against Trump’s decision to hike duties on Chinese goods to 145 per cent, will come into effect today.

“When people understand what we’re doing, I think the dollar will go way up,” he told reporters, downplaying the market turbulence.”The bond market’s going good. It had a little moment but I solved that problem very quickly.”