When President Trump threatened tariffs in Canada, Mexico and China in January and said that these countries would have to do more to stop the drug flow and migrants to the USA, ran Canadian and Mexican officials to Washington and carried charts and videos in which their efforts to tighten their limits were described.
Canada created a “fentanyl -zar” and went with new resources to combat organized crimes, while Mexico sent troops to the border and delivered cartel companies in US care rights. As a result, Mr. Trump held the tariffs in the North American neighbors of America for 30 days.
China never made such overtures and, according to Mr. Trump's view, did not take any major steps to stop the fentinel flow to the United States. On February 4, Mr. Trump promoted all Chinese imports with a 10 percent tariff. Last week the President said that on March 4, he would add another 10 percent in addition to all existing Chinese tariffs.
Mr. Trump moves quickly to transform the trade relationship in the USA. The Chinese move much more carefully and more consciously when they try to judge Mr. Trump and determine what he actually wants from China. Some of the consultants of Mr. Trump, including Finance Minister Scott Bessent and Foreign Minister Marco Rubio, held calls with their Chinese colleagues. A call between Mr. Trump and Xi Jinping, China's guide, has not decorated.
The situation underlines the dilemma for foreign leaders in dealing with such an unpredictable and unconventional president as Mr. Trump, who makes significant changes to trade conditions with little prerequisite or preparation.
The Chinese do not want to initiate a conversation because they do not want to be seen as a plea and are careful when offering concessions before they understand the parameters of the debate. Instead, Chinese civil servants, academics and other near the government had discreet discussions to try to determine Mr. Trump's motives, and at the same time hovered various aspects of a potential trade agreement between the countries to assess the reaction of the Americans.
“With my experience with the Chinese, in the first rounds of a negotiation, you are suspicious that there are hidden traps or other reasons to be careful,” said Michael Pillsbury, an expert from China who advises the Trump government on dealing with the country.
The Chinese side has conveyed that they want to work with the United States on both sides of advantageous measures. According to a person who looks at the Chinese government near the Chinese government near the Chinese government near the Chinese government, they have difficulty identifying people in the United States.
They also try to evaluate the importance of some recent steps of the administration, such as a memorandum, proposed the strict restrictions on the investments between the countries. Mr. Trump publicly contradicted this memo memo after signing it and said he welcomed Chinese investments.
“I think the Chinese are in a waiting and hearing mode,” said Myron Brilliant, who has worked with companies for years to understand the Chinese and recently reduced a trip to China. “They take up all possible inputs, they start their consultations, they don't press the panic button yet.”
“There is a willingness to conclude an appetite to conclude a contract with the Trump government, but China does not want a prerequisites and is looking for more clarity about the parameters of a deal,” said Brilliant, senior advisor to the DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group, an ready-made company.
At the end of February, a delegation with Cui Tiandai, the former Chinese ambassador in the United States, met with representatives of Think Tanks in Washington, more than half a dozen people familiar with the discussions.
At meetings and dinner, the Chinese delegation conveyed the hope that the federal states could reach accommodation, and the ideas for a potential trade agreement, including significant purchases of American agricultural products and Chinese investments in the USA, said several people.
They called for the treatment of China as an even partner and criticized earlier measures by the bidges to “include” China such as export controls. The delegation also threatened that if other US tariffs came into force, a law enforcement authorities could withdraw that had put together to combat the fentanyl trade that contained information that could be used to prosecute Chinese companies, said one of the people. They admitted that the Chinese economy had problems and that more tariffs could hurt them.
Current and former consultants and others who are familiar with Mr. Trumps say that he had expressed interest in increasing a far -reaching contract with Mr. XI, which could contain Chinese purchases and investments as well as cooperation on topics such as nuclear security.
But Mr. Trump also believes that China did not buy enough products in the deal he signed with him in 2020. Mr. Trump also has no aversion to increasing the pressure on Beijing by imposing tariffs and considering them as a source of leverage in negotiations.
Mr. Trump said he has a great relationship with Mr. XI and wants the Chinese to invest in the United States. When asked in February whether he would conclude a trade agreement with China, Mr. Trump replied: “It is possible.”
“We made a great trade agreement with China,” he said. “The problem is that bidges did not push them to stick to it.”
In a television interview about Fox on Sunday, Howard Lutnick, the Minister of Commerce, said that the Chinese instead of stopping fentanyl, gave people “maximum subsidy” that made the ingredients.
“The Chinese have to stop this murder of Americans,” he said.
The tariffs, which Mr. Trump threatened in China since the office, are already roughly comparable to those that he imposed during his first administration, said Scott Kennedy, a senior consultant at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Think Tank in Washington. In 2018, Mr. Trump put the tariffs of 7.5 to 25 percent for more than 350 billion US dollars of Chinese imports that came into force.
“It's still early,” said Kennedy. “This should be seen as the floor of what is imposed, not as a blanket.”
So far, Beijing has been careful with the retribution and answered Mr. Trump's first tariffs with a more limited number. However, it has signaled that it is ready to go on and possibly the dominance in the global supply chain to precise pain.
The Chinese delegation, which belonged to Mr. Cui, was as China's top diplomat, Wang Yi, came to New York, visited the United Nations. While Mr. Wang did not go to Washington, according to a source, the Chinese message helped to arrange Mr. Cui in the capital of the nation.
Senior officials of the Communist Party, including Xinghai, the former deputy head of the Chinese markets, and the economist Zhu Min, traveled to Washington and met with some members of the Denkfabrik community and the government.
The Chinese seem to examine the best contact points for their government. The president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, served in the previous Trump administration, as well as the private sector. The Chinese have recently examined the role that Elon Musk, who has extensive business interests in China via Tesla, will play in the Trump administration.
In private, the Chinese have given the willingness to negotiate a deal, but want to know that they have direct access to Mr. Trump.
“There seems to be the feeling that Beijing blames what happened on the poor communication channels,” said Yun Sun, director of the China program in the Stimson Center, a research group in Washington.
Chinese academics and thought factory officers have started floating various ideas for a trade agreement. One suggestion is that the Chinese in areas such as electric vehicles, batteries and solar collectors make important investments in the United States that, according to a person, with direct knowledge of the proposal, could create an estimated 500,000 US jobs. In an unusual step, Chinese companies would be willing to licensing technology for American partners and having minority participations to undertakings to reduce national security concerns, the person said.
Another preliminary offer is the purchase of goods and services from the USA in agriculture, aerospace, energy and possibly even in technology. The Chinese have also proposed to buy more US state bonds, and have recently expressed a new reserve currency on a matter of a step that Mr. Trump recently stated about a step of a handful of nations, including China and Russia. The Chinese have proposed that Beijing could withdraw on this effort.
Chinese diplomats and academics have stated that Beijing could also help the United States achieve a deal between Russia and Ukraine and to help the reconstruction of Ukraine.
In return, the Chinese proposed that the United States should commit themselves to stabilize the economic relationship. This could mean that further tariffs and technology controls are suppressed and more Chinese investments in the United States.
In view of the national security concerns in the United States with closer relationships with China, it is not clear that the two sides could find an agreement on these questions. And some analysts say that Mr. Trump's movements to increase tariffs, reduce the Chinese less probability, since Mr. XI does not want to look as if he is on Mr. Trump.
“We watch the possibilities fly by and the longer you are waiting, the more hostility is in space and less time for both sides that come to an agreement,” said Ms. Sun.
Minho Kim contributed the reporting.