When President Trump threatened tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China in January, saying those countries needed to do more to stop the flow of drugs and migrants into the United States, Canadian and Mexican officials raced to Washington, bearing charts and videos detailing their efforts to toughen their borders.
Canada created a “fentanyl czar” and committed fresh resources to combating organized crime, while Mexico dispatched troops to the border and delivered cartel operatives into U.S. custody. As a result, Mr. Trump paused tariffs on America’s North American neighbors for 30 days.
China never made these kinds of overtures and, in Mr. Trump’s view, did not take any big moves to stop the flow of fentanyl into the United States. So on Feb. 4, Mr. Trump moved forward with imposing a 10 percent tariff on all Chinese imports. Last week, the president said that on March 4 he would add another 10 percent on top of all existing Chinese tariffs.
Mr. Trump is moving quickly to transform the U.S.-China trade relationship. The Chinese are moving much more cautiously and deliberately as they try to assess Mr. Trump and determine what it is he actually wants from China. Some of Mr. Trump’s advisers, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have held calls with their Chinese counterparts. But a call between Mr. Trump and Xi Jinping, China’s leader, has failed to materialize.
The situation underscores the quandary for foreign leaders in dealing with a president as unpredictable and unconventional as Mr. Trump, who is making substantial changes to trade terms with little advance notice or preparation.
The Chinese do not want to initiate a conversation because they do not want to be seen as pleading, and are wary of offering concessions before they understand the parameters of the debate, people familiar with the discussions said. Instead, Chinese officials, academics and others close to the government have been holding discreet conversations to try to determine Mr. Trump’s motives, while floating various aspects of a potential trade deal between the countries to assess the Americans’ reaction.
“With my experience with the Chinese, they are suspicious in the initial rounds of a negotiation that there are hidden traps or other reasons to be cautious,” said Michael Pillsbury, a China expert who advises the Trump administration on dealing with the country.
The Chinese side has conveyed they would like to work with the United States on mutually beneficial measures. But they have been struggling to identify people in the United States that they see as reliable channels for communication, according to a person close to the Chinese government.
They are also trying to assess the significance of some recent steps by the administration, like a memorandum that proposed strict limits on investment between the countries. Mr. Trump publicly contradicted that memo days after he signed it, saying he welcomed Chinese investment.
“I think the Chinese are in a wait and listen mode,” said Myron Brilliant, who has spent years working with businesses to understand the Chinese and recently returned from a trip to China. “They’re taking in all kinds of input, they’re beginning their consultations, they’re not pushing the panic button just yet.”
“There is a willingness, an appetite to do a deal with the Trump administration, but China doesn’t want preconditions on that, and seeks more clarity on the parameters of a deal,” said Mr. Brilliant, a senior counselor at DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group, an advisory firm.
In late February, a delegation including Cui Tiankai, the former Chinese ambassador to the United States, met with representatives of think tanks in Washington, according to more than half a dozen people familiar with the discussions.
Over meetings and dinners, the Chinese delegation conveyed hope that the countries could reach an accommodation, and floated ideas for a potential trade deal, including significant purchases of American agricultural products and Chinese investment in the United States, several people said.
They called for treating China as an equal partner and criticized past measures taken by the Biden administration to “contain” China, like export controls. The delegation also threatened that, if further U.S. tariffs went into effect, China could withdraw a law enforcement package that it had put together to combat the fentanyl trade, which included information that could be used to prosecute Chinese companies, one of the people said. They…
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