Trump says he's "not ready to make a deal" with China to end or at least scale back his trade war, but a deal could be right around corner, he says.
Trump believes China will give in to his demands sooner rather than later because they can't keep paying for something they've never paid for.
“I think they probably wish they made the deal that they had on the table before they tried to renegotiate it,” Trump said Monday at a joint press conference in Tokyo alongside Japanese leader Shinzo Abe. “They would like to make a deal. We’re not ready to make a deal.” [...]
“I think sometime in the future China and the United States will absolutely have a great trade deal, and we look forward to that,” Trump said. “Because I don’t believe that China can continue to pay these, really, hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs. I don’t believe they can do that.”
The good news -- at least for China -- is that they don't have to pay for Trump's tariffs. They never paid for his tariffs.
Americans pay for Trump's tariffs.
If this is truly what Trump believes, it means he believes he's applying pressure that doesn't actually exist to Chinese officials and their economy. It means he's relying on leverage that he doesn't have.
China's economy has been affected by Trump's trade war, but not to the degree that he seemingly believes it has.