After already hitting China with a series of tariffs, President Donald Trump said in a bombshell interview today that he was ‘ready to go’ with $500bn (£382.6bn) in tariffs on China.
“We’re down a tremendous amount,” Trump said in an interview to CNBC on Friday, adding: “I’m ready to go to 500.”
“I’m not doing this for politics. I’m doing this to do this right thing for our country. We have been ripped off by China for a long time and I told that to President Xi,” he further said.
Trump also said he was told by unspecified Chinese officials that “nobody would ever complain” from past administrations “until you came along — me. They said, ‘Now you’re more than complaining. We don’t like what you’re doing.'”
The United States has already imposed tariffs on $34bn worth of Chinese products last month.
