Trump accuses China of violating the trade agreement to lower tariffs

BarcelonaUS President Donald Trump on Friday accused China of violating the trade agreement it reached with the US to lower tariffs imposed by Washington. "I made a quick deal with China to save them from what I thought would be a very bad situation, and I didn't want this to happen. Thanks to this agreement, everything quickly stabilized and China got back to normal [...]. The bad news is that China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, has completely violated their agreement with us."

The president did not specify in the publication the conditions under which China would have violated the agreement reached two weeks ago, the second that the Trump administration has reached with a foreign government to minimize tariffs after agreeing with the United Kingdom. "Two weeks ago, China was in grave economic danger. The extremely high tariffs I imposed made it virtually impossible for China to trade with the US market, which is, by far, the number 1 market in the world," Trump recalled on Friday.

Uncertainty in the truce

According to the US president, the effect of the tariffs "was terrible" for China. "Many factories closed and there was, to put it mildly, civil unrest. I saw what was happening and I didn't like it; for them, not for us," he added. Both economic powers had agreed to a truce in the tariff war, according to which the Trump administration lowered US tariffs on Chinese products from 145% to 30%, while Beijing had reduced taxes on Washington from 125%. Under the agreement, these conditions would be maintained for three months, during which the delegations of both countries were to negotiate a more lasting pact, although some analysts were already warning that the pact would probably not guarantee a complete reconciliation. Now, these new statements by Trump generate even more uncertainty about the trade dialogue process with Communist China – which could affect thousands of students – a decision that Beijing has described as "discriminatory."

Meanwhile, the European Union continues negotiating with the United States to reach a trade agreement. Trade and Economic Security Commissioner Maros Sefcovic assured this Friday that he remains in constant contact with his US counterpart, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, with whom he held another telephone conversation this Thursday with the aim of making progress on a solution to the tariff crisis. "Another call with US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick. We have invested all our time and effort, as offering forward-looking solutions remains a top priority for the EU. We remain in constant contact," Sefcovic indicated today through his profile on the social network X.

Dubai that both parties intended to remain in telephone contact "on a routine basis every two days." A US appeals court on Thursday lifted the block imposed on most of US President Donald Trump's global tariffs. Thus, despite the announced truces, the United States maintains 25% tariffs on European steel and aluminum and on imports of automobiles and car parts; while the 20% rate it announced on all other European products is temporarily reduced by 10 percentage points during the negotiations.

The EU, for its part, having announced a first set of countermeasures and finalizing a second, is keeping its entire response on hold as a gesture of goodwill for the negotiations.