United States President Donald Trump threatened on Friday to cancel an upcoming summit with Xi Jinping and hit China with “massive” tariffs after Beijing imposed export curbs on rare earth minerals.
In an angry social media post that triggered a sell-off on the stock markets, Trump said China’s restrictions on materials used in almost every area of modern life were “very hostile”.
Trump said China had sent letters to countries around the world detailing export controls on “each and every element of production having to do with Rare Earths”.
Rare earth elements are critical to manufacturing everything from smartphones and electric vehicles to military hardware and renewable energy technology. China dominates global production and processing of these materials.
“There is no way that China should be allowed to hold the World ‘captive,'” he said on his Truth Social network.
The US president called into question his plans to meet Xi at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit later this month, which was to be their first encounter since Trump returned to power in January.
“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,” he said.
He also threatened sanctions that would reignite the trade war that has simmered between Washington and Beijing since his second term began.
“One of the Policies that we are calculating at this moment is a massive increase of Tariffs on Chinese products coming into the United States of America,” he said.
There was no immediate reaction from Beijing.
“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,” Trump said.
His outburst comes just weeks after he had spoken of the importance of meeting Xi at the APEC summit and revealed that he would travel to China next year.
Washington and Beijing engaged in a tit-for-tat tariff war earlier this year that threatened to effectively halt trade between the world’s two largest economies.
Both sides eventually agreed to de-escalate tensions but the truce has been shaky.
