Will add tariffs if Xi won’t talk, Trump declares

Meeting with China’s leader is goal amid dispute on trade

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Monday that if Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping doesn’t meet with him this month at the Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan, then additional tariffs of $300 billion in Chinese imports will go into effect.

But Trump said he expects Xi to attend.

“I think he will go, and I think we’re scheduled to have a meeting,” Trump said. “I think he’ll go, and I have a great relationship with him. He’s actually an incredible guy; he’s a great man. He’s very strong, very smart, but he’s for China and I’m for the United States.”

Trump made the threat during an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box program Monday morning. Trump appeared to have called in response to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which had criticized Trump for using the threat of tariffs to force Mexico to do more to halt the flow of migrants across the U.S.’ southern border.

Trump said the chamber has its priorities wrong.

“They have to start representing the United States, not just the companies that are members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,” he said.

Trade talks with China hit an impasse last month after

the president accused China of reneging on provisions of a tentative agreement. The two countries have since escalated their trade war.

“China is going to make a deal because they’re going to have to make a deal,” Trump said Monday.

Trump again suggested that an eventual trade deal could involve Huawei Technologies Co. The Trump administration is campaigning to block the company from emerging 5G telecommunications networks around the world and has moved to cut off Huawei from U.S. suppliers, citing national security concerns.

“I do see it as a threat,” Trump said Monday. “At the same time, it could be very well that we do something with respect to Huawei as part of our trade negotiation with China. China very much wants to make a deal. They want to make a deal much more than I do, but we’ll see what happens.”

When asked whether actions against Huawei could set the U.S. back on 5G, Trump said, “No.”

The U.S. is “actually going to be leading very shortly. You know, we’re leading in everything,” he said.

Of China, he said: “As great as they are — and they are great — they don’t have near the capability of our geniuses in Silicon Valley that walk around in undershirts and they’re worth $2 billion.”

But by consistently linking the company to trade talks, Trump has suggested his aim is to stunt China’s growth as an economic rival to the U.S.

“Huawei is very powerful, very strong,” he said in the interview. He said that he wants China to do well but that “I don’t want them to do as well as us.”

Trump has blacklisted Huawei, cutting off the supply of American components that China’s largest technology company needs to make its smartphones and networking gear. The U.S. administration is also pressing allies including France and the U.K. to exclude Huawei from their 5G networks.

By contrast, Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin oversaw the signing last week of an accord between Huawei and the largest Russian wireless carrier, Mobile TeleSystems PJSC, to

start 5G pilot zones in Russia.

Russia believes that the Trump administration’s effort against Huawei justifies Moscow’s decision to build a “sovereign Internet” to protect its domestic network from external threats, according to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Maxim Akimov.

“What the U.S. is doing now — they’re destroying this world,” Akimov, who oversees telecommunications, transport and digital economy infrastructure, said in an interview last week at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. “But the shrapnel will hurt everyone,” he said.

The U.S.’ moves against Huawei showed “one-sided unfriendly actions of countries can have fatal consequences,” Akimov said. The sovereign Internet was about “preventing chaos” if Russia’s network is cut off from abroad, and not an attempt to isolate the country from the outside world, he said.

On Monday, a Huawei executive defended the company’s security practices in the face of tough questioning from members of the British Parliament.

John Suffolk, Huawei’s global cybersecurity and privacy officer, appeared at a hearing in the House of Commons about the safety of Britain’s telecommunications infrastructure.

At the hearing, Suffolk said Huawei was independent and would never undermine the safety of its equipment to satisfy demands from Beijing. “There are no laws in China that obligate us to work with the Chinese government,” he said during questioning.

Britain is weighing whether to allow Huawei to play a role in its new 5G networks. The company’s equipment is already being used in the country. The U.S. has threatened to restrict the intelligence it shares with countries that allow Huawei in its 5G networks.

Over the past week, Chinese

authorities have summoned major international tech companies to warn that they could face consequences if they cooperate with the Trump administration’s ban on sales of key U.S. technology to Chinese companies.

A U.S. delegation left the weekend’s Group of 20 finance ministers meeting in Fukuoka, Japan, without any significant breakthrough on China. But Trump’s reversal on a threat to impose new tariffs on Mexico over migration from Central America lifted the mood at the meeting. In addition to his talks with Xi, Trump is scheduled to meet with Putin at the G-20 leaders summit in Osaka.

Of the tentative meeting with Xi, Trump said: “We’re expected to meet, and if we do, that’s fine.”

Trump on Monday also promised to do “something” about French wine, which he said is allowed into the U.S. virtually tariff-free while France imposes duties on U.S. wine. The president called the arrangement unfair.

“France charges us a lot for the wine. And yet we charge them very little for French wine,” Trump said in the interview with CNBC.

“So the wineries come to me and say, ‘Sir’ — the California guys, they come — ‘Sir, we’re paying a lot of money to put our product into France, and you’re letting’ — meaning, this country is allowing — ‘these French wines, which are great wines, but we have great wines, too — allowing it to come in for nothing. It’s not fair.”’

“And you know what?” Trump added. “It’s not fair. We’ll do something about it.”

Information for this article was contributed by Margaret Talev, Kathleen Hunter, Ilya Arkhipov, Stepan Kravchenko and Terrence Dopp of Bloomberg News; by Adam Satariano of the New York Times; and by staff members of The Associated Press.