Trump Says ‘Extremely Hard’ to Strike Trade Deal With China’s Xi

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that China’s President Xi Jinping was “extremely hard to make a deal with,” the latest comment from officials expressing frustration with striking a trade agreement.

“I like President XI of China, always have, and always will, but he is VERY TOUGH, AND EXTREMELY HARD TO MAKE A DEAL WITH!!!,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social media platform. 

Trump’s comment comes after the two sides accused each other of violating the temporary trade truce they struck in Geneva last month. That surprise deal saw the two dramatically roll back tariffs on each other’s imports for a 90-day period.

“Since Geneva, however, Beijing has continued to slow-walk approvals for export licenses for rare earths and other elements needed to make cars, chips and other products,” frustrating the U.S., The Wall Street Journal reported last Friday. On Tuesday, the Journal reported that “automakers are racing to find workarounds” to the export curbs imposed in April by China, which controls around 90% of the world’s supply of key elements like dysprosium and terbium.

Beijing, meanwhile, said this week that Washington had introduced “discriminatory restrictive measures against China,” including AI chip export restrictions and canceling visas for Chinese students in the U.S.