U.S. President Donald Trump insisted on Tuesday that trade talks with China have not collapsed and called the widening U.S.-China tariff war “a little squabble,” even as his administration readies 25% duties on all remaining Chinese imports.
Expanding on a stream of optimistic early morning tweets about the state of talks, Trump told reporters that he has a “very good dialogue” going with China and touted his “extraordinary” relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“We have a dialogue going. It will always continue,” Trump said. “But we made a deal with China … We had a deal that was very close but then they broke it. They really did.”
Trump earlier tweeted that a deal would happen and appealed to China to buy U.S. farm products.
Stocks, which took a beating on Monday after Trump late on Friday threatened a new round of tariffs on about $300 billion worth of remaining imports from China, gained strength after Trump’s comments.