President Trump suggested on Friday that the trade truce between the United States and China was not holding and accused Beijing of breaking an agreement that was brokered this month to temporarily lower tariffs that the countries had imposed on each other.
In a post on Truth Social, Mr. Trump said that China violated the pact and suggested that he could return to a more confrontational approach: “So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!”
The accusations threatened to derail hopes of a broader agreement between the world’s largest economies. The trade standoff between the United States and China has created significant concern for businesses and investors and raised fears of a global downturn.
The new dispute arrives at a moment of great uncertainty for Mr. Trump and his ability to brandish steep tariffs as a way of forcing other countries to make trade concessions. A federal trade court earlier this week declared many of the president’s duties to be illegal, including some that he imposed on China on emergency grounds. An appeals court later restored that power temporarily.
The U.S. had ratcheted tariffs on Chinese imports to 145 percent earlier this year, and China had hit American products with a 125 percent import tax. Both sides lowered those levies in early May after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, met in Switzerland with their Chinese counterparts. They agreed to hold additional talks on a more comprehensive agreement and pause most of the tariffs for 90 days.
However, Mr. Bessent said on Thursday evening that the talks had “stalled” and suggested that Mr. Trump and Xi Jinping, China’s president, would need to engage directly.
“I believe that we will be having more talks with them in the next few weeks,” Mr. Bessent said on Fox News.
Mr. Greer said on Friday that the president’s concern stemmed from the fact that China did not appear to be honoring its commitments under a deal brokered between the two nations in Geneva.
“We’re very concerned with it,” he said on CNBC, adding: “The Chinese are slow rolling their compliance which is completely unacceptable and has to be addressed”
That agreement, which saw both countries mutually lower tariffs, required China to lift some export controls and lessen its restrictions on the sale of critical minerals and magnets.
Mr. Greer said that U.S. officials “haven’t seen the flow of some of those critical minerals, like they’re supposed to be doing.” Later, he added, “We’re seeing them to export curbs. We’re not seeing major changes.”
The impact of Mr. Trump’s tariffs was apparent in trade-related data, which on Friday showed that imports of goods dropped nearly 20 percent in April. That is the largest monthly decline on record. The goods trade deficit nearly halved, to around $88 billion.
Mr. Trump’s post arrived against the backdrop of a whirlwind day of court hearings that cast legal doubt over his ability to issue steep tariffs on China. But Mr. Greer rejected the assertion that an early defeat had harmed U.S. negotiations, even though he had told the court only days earlier that such an adverse ruling would harm diplomatic efforts.
“All the other countries I’m dealing with in negotiations are just treating this as just kind of a bump in the road, rather than any fundamental change,” Mr. Greer said Friday morning on CNBC. “So I feel pretty confident about the case, and if the case goes the other way, we have other tools as well.”
Speaking at the White House earlier this week, Mr. Trump was defensive when asked if he had “chickened out” on his tariff threats. He said that he was aware that the tariff rates that he had imposed on China were too high and that it was part of a broader strategy to force the Chinese to negotiate.
In his post on Friday, Mr. Trump vented that China was not living up to its end of the bargain.
“I saw what was happening and didn’t like it, for them, not for us,” Mr. Trump wrote. “I made a FAST DEAL with China in order to save them from what I thought was going to be a very bad situation, and I didn’t want to see that happen.”
He added: “The bad news is that China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US.”
Alan Rappeport is an economic policy reporter for The Times, based in Washington. He covers the Treasury Department and writes about taxes, trade and fiscal matters.
Tony Romm is a reporter covering economic policy and the Trump administration for The Times, based in Washington.
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