U.S. President Donald Trump may like to think that his tariffs are hurting the Chinese economy, but one leading economist said the slowdown in China is actually mostly "self-inflicted." "There's downward pressure on the Chinese economy. A lot of it is self-inflicted due to the so-called deleveraging campaign and the tariffs imposed by the U.S. are re-enforcing that downside but by no means the major source of downward pressure," Stephen Roach, a senior fellow at Yale University, told CNBC's Sri Jegarajah on Friday. The U.S. and China — the two largest economies in the world — are engaged in a tariff fight that began last year. The Trump administration imposed additional tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese imports, while Beijing slapped duties on $110 billion of American goods. Both sides are negotiating a deal to address their differences on issues such a trade imbalance and the alleged forced technology transfers from American firms to their Chinese partners. Trump last month said "the tariffs are hurting China very badly." His comment came at a time when Chinese economic growth is slowing down: Beijing said gross domestic product expansion is expected to expand by 6 percent to 6.5 percent this year, down from last year's official 6.6 percent figure.

With Chinese authorities moving to stimulate the economy through tax cuts and monetary policy easing, China's economy has started to show "some green shoots," said Roach, who's a former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia. "I think the economy will begin to move up in the second half of this year — somewhere in the 6 percent zone," the economist said, adding that, meanwhile, "the sugar high is coming off in the U.S." with multiple quarters of growth deceleration.

'Superficial deal'