Trump threatens tariff surge, rules out Xi meeting

US President Donald Trump threatened to hike tariffs on Chinese exports and cancel a meeting with President Xi Jinping, in a broadside against Beijing Friday that sent markets and relations between the world’s largest economies into a spiral.

- 

Trump, due to meet Xi in about three weeks in South Korea, complained on social media about what he characterized as China’s plans to hold the global economy hostage after China dramatically expanded its rare earth element export controls Thursday. China dominates the market for such elements, which are essential to tech manufacturing.

Trump said there was no reason to hold the meeting with Xi that he had previously announced. Beijing had never confirmed the meeting between the leaders.

The remarks signaled the biggest rupture in relations in four months and immediately raised questions about whether an economic detente between Beijing and Washington - the world’s biggest factory and its biggest consumer - can survive.

Trump, a Republican who has wielded tariffs paid by US importers against friends and foes, said Friday that he was weighing a “massive” increase in such levies on Chinese-made goods.