US President Donald Trump claimed that US has taken the strongest action against China's "abusive" trade practices.
Trump, who has been steadily hiking tariffs on Chinese exports to the US since June, is scheduled to meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit in Argentina on November 30 and December 1.
Asking Beijing to bring down the billions of dollars of trade deficit, Trump has taken an unprecedented tough measure against the alleged unfair trade practices of China. The US has a nearly USD 500 billion trade deficit with China per annum, which Trump says is unsustainable for the US.
"We've taken the toughest ever action to crack down on China's abusive trade practices," Trump told his cheering supporters at an election rally in Wisconsin.
He claimed that due to the tough measures taken by the US, China wants to make a deal with America.
"They want to make a deal. And I said, you're not ready yet. It's true. They want to make a deal. And President Xi is a great person, and, hopefully, we'll do something soon or someday. But, you know, USD 500 billion has been taken out of this country for years every year,” Trump said referring to the massive trade imbalance between US and China.
Trump blamed the previous American leadership as other countries exploited the US.
"On trade, we lost USD 807 billion. Think of it. Who made these deals? And we're the one with all the power, because we're the piggy bank that all of these countries want to come in and rob, so we have all the power,” he said.
Trump said he is now negotiating new trade agreements.
“We did Canada and Mexico. We did South Korea. We're doing a lot of them. Now they're all coming and they all want to make a deal because they're afraid of those tariffs. They don't want those tariffs. They'll sign anything but tariffs, please,” he said.
"Don't do that to me, President Trump. We don't want tariffs. We don't want tariffs, please,” Trump told his supporters quoting other countries.
Trump said he wants to take care of Americans. “We're taking care of our people. You know, we had these globalists. They didn't care so much about us. They want to take care of the globe. I want to take care of the United States of America,” he said.
(PTI)
