President Donald Trump has cast doubt on the future of a trade deal with China, the Financial Times reports, despite last week’s breakthrough agreement to suspend additional tariffs whilst negotiations continue.
Trump wrote on Twitter that the bilateral talks were “moving along nicely…in the end we will probably have to use a different structure in that this will be too hard to get done and verify results after completion.”
US and Asian markets dropped after the comments were posted.
The Trump administration’s handling of the trade problems posed by China has come under persistent criticism from US policymakers. Marco Rubio, a prominent advocate for a tougher stance on China, wrote following the President’s tweet that “…a short-term trade deal that sounds good but poses long term danger is a #Bad Deal”
Rubio was referring to Trump’s apparent easing of pressure on struggling Chinese telecoms company ZTE, which, it was also reported on Wednesday, has lost over $2bn in revenue after the supply ban on US companies took effect in April.
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