The White House Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said Friday that President Donald Trump is “optimistic” that the United States and China can reach an agreement on tariffs.
President Donald Trump And his administration is planning a pressure campaign to convince United States business partners to isolate China in exchange for reduced tariffs.
The administration is negotiating with more than 70 countries to ensure commitments to limit its deals with Beijing in exchange for rates and barriers reduced for trade, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing familiar sources with discussions.
Trump administration officials will demand that US business partners block Chinese through their countries, prevent Chinese companies from installing in their territories and committing themselves to eliminating the flow of cheap Chinese industrial goods in their economies, according to The newspaper.
The administration intends to use the commitments, which could vary widely by the country depending on the level of its entanglement with China, to force Beijing to the negotiating table. American and Chinese officials have publicly discussed the possible conversations between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in recent months amid the growing commercial war.
President Donald Trump during a ceremony at the South Lawn on April 14, 2025. (Win McNamee / Getty images / getty images)
Treasury Secretary Scott bets He proposed Trump’s isolation strategy in Mar-A-Lago on April 6, according to the Journal. Besent has been leading trade negotiations since Trump announced a 90 -day break about his reciprocal tariffs against most countries. The administration did not raise its levies on China.
The White House said on Tuesday that China now faces up to a 245% tariff on imports to the United States “as a result of its retaliation actions,” according to an information sheet published to accompany Trump’s executive order that initiates an investigation into “the national security risks raised by the US dependence on the imported critical minerals.”
Trump announced that he would attend a Besent meeting and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick They remain on Wednesday with Japanese officials to negotiate tariffs, the cost of military support and “commercial equity”. “I wish you can solve something that is good (great!) For Japan and the United States!” Trump wrote in Truth Social on Wednesday morning.
The White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, on Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (Demetrius Freeman / The Washington Post through Getty Images / Getty Images)
In his informative session on Tuesday, the White House Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, read a statement to the journalists who said Trump had given him in the Oval office.
“The ball is in China’s court. China needs to make a deal with us. We don’t have to deal with them,” Leavitt said. “There is no difference between China and any other country, except that they are much larger. And China wants what we have, what every country wants: the American consumer. Or, to put it in another way, they need our money.”
Fox News Digital contacted the White House on Wednesday about the reported “isolation” strategy, but did not immediately receive an answer.
The Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Besent, looks on the way to meet with the president of Argentina, Javier Milei, in the Palace of the Government of Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires on April 14, 2025. (Luis Robayo / AFP through Getty Images / Getty Images)
Besent has been reflecting on other potential measures against China, including the additional cut of the United States economy with tariffs and possibly eliminating the Chinese stocks of US exchanges. UU., According to the Journal. In a recent one Interview with Fox Business, Besent suggested that the elimination of Chinese actions remained another potential course of action.
Beijing, meanwhile, is carrying out a campaign of own influence. XI is promoting Southeast Asia this week and has promised greater access for Malaysia and Vietnam to Chinese markets.
In an interview with Fox News, Trump made reference to efforts to ensure control of the United States of the Panama Canal since the reach of China, suggesting that commercial partners could choose.
Click here to get the Fox News application
“We don’t like the way it runs, and we don’t like China’s influence,” Trump said. “It seems that China’s influence has gone. You know, when we looked at him a year ago, almost all the flags and each statement was written in Chinese. Okay, I said that we did not give it to China. We gave Panama. We should not have given it to Panama. And we are working with Panama at this time. We will determine what to do about it.”
