‘No reason to meet Xi’: Trump lashes out at China’s ‘hostile’ export control plan, threatens new tariffs

WASHINGTON: United States President Donald Trump said on Friday (local time) that there is “no reason to meet” with Chinese President Xi Jinping after Beijing took “very hostile” steps by imposing sweeping new export controls on rare earth elements.

Trump warned that the United States was preparing to respond with strong countermeasures, including a “massive increase of tariffs” on Chinese goods entering the United States.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said, “Some very strange things are happening in China! They are becoming very hostile, and sending letters to countries throughout the world, that they want to impose export controls on each and every element of production having to do with rare earths, and virtually anything else they can think of, even if it’s not manufactured in China”.

He claimed that several nations had reached out to the United States, expressing anger at what he described as “great trade hostility”. Trump said the move came as a surprise because “our relationship with China over the past six months has been a very good one, thereby making this move on trade an even more surprising one”.

“I have always felt that they’ve been lying in wait, and now, as usual, I have been proven right! There is no way that China should be allowed to hold the world ‘captive,’ but that seems to have been their plan for quite some time,” Trump wrote, calling the move “sinister and hostile”.

Trump said that China’s letters detailed, “with great specificity, each and every element that they want to withhold from other nations.” He added that the timing of the move was questionable, noting that it coincided with a breakthrough in peace efforts in the Middle East.

“The Chinese letters were especially inappropriate in that this was the day that, after three thousand years of bedlam and fighting, there is peace in the Middle East. I wonder if that timing was coincidental?” Trump said.

He also revealed that he had been due to meet Xi at the APEC summit in South Korea in two weeks but suggested that the meeting may not go ahead. “I was to meet President Xi in two weeks, at APEC, in South Korea, but now there seems to be no reason to do so”, Trump said.

“Dependent on what China says about the hostile ‘order’ that they have just put out, I will be forced, as President of the United States of America, to financially counter their move. For every element that they have been able to monopolise, we have two”, he said.

“I never thought it would come to this but perhaps, as with all things, the time has come. Ultimately, though potentially painful, it will be a very good thing, in the end, for the USA,” Trump added.

Beijing has ramped up sweeping restrictions on rare earth exports, expanding its control list and extending curbs to cover production technologies and overseas applications, including in military and semiconductor sectors, CNN reported.

China, which dominates global processing of rare earths used in everything from smartphones to fighter jets, added five new elements, holmium, erbium, thulium, europium, and ytterbium, to its existing list of restricted minerals, bringing the total to 12 out of 17 types. Export licences will now be required not only for the elements themselves but also for technologies related to mining, smelting, and magnet production.

The Chinese Commerce Ministry said the move aims to “safeguard national security and interests” and prevent the materials from being used “directly or indirectly in military and other sensitive fields”. It also imposed new restrictions on lithium batteries and graphite anode materials used in electric vehicles, CNN’s report added.

The new measures will come into full effect between November and December, pointing to Beijing’s growing leverage in trade talks with the United States ahead of an expected meeting between President Xi Jinping and Donald Trump at the APEC summit in South Korea later this month.

CNN also noted that the latest curbs mirror Washington’s own export controls on advanced chips, introducing a new phase in the ongoing US-China trade confrontation. (ANI)