World watches as trade war looms between US and China
www.thetimes.com

... A last-minute postponement in talks between President Trump and China's President Xi cast doubt over whether the leaders can quickly hammer out a deal to prevent another trade war breaking out between the world's two largest economies.

A scheduled phone call between Xi and Trump was called off late yesterday, according to The Wall Street Journal. After talks with President Sheinbaum of Mexico and the Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau this week, the White House agreed to delay 25 per cent tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods by a month.

Yesterday, China launched retaliatory tariffs of between 10 per cent and 15 per cent on imports of US liquified natural gas, coal, crude oil and farm equipment. Beijing also initiated an antitrust inquiry into Google's parent company Alphabet.

The back-and-forth on tariffs between China and the US has rekindled memories of Trump's first term in the White House where he imposed taxes on specific Chinese goods, sparking a trade war. ...

Is Pres Xi not wanting to play ball with Pres Trump?

Remarks by President Trump on the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (2018)
trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov

... It is my great honor to announce that we have successfully completed negotiations on a brand new deal to terminate and replace NAFTA and the NAFTA trade agreements with an incredible new US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, called "USMCA." It, sort of, just works: USMCA. (Applause.)

USMCA. That'll be the name, I guess, that, 99 percent of the time, we'll be hearing: USMCA. It has a good ring to it. ...

So we have negotiated this new agreement based on the principle of fairness and reciprocity. To me, it's the most important word in trade because we've been treated so unfairly by so many nations all over the world. And we're changing that. ...

Yet Pres Trump now seems to denounce that treaty he negotiated with his current actions?