Trump blames everyone but China for trade deficit The president's remarks came shortly after economic adviser Kudlow said, 'Blame China.'

President Donald Trump on Monday laid blame for the trade deficit that the U.S. runs with China not on Beijing but on his predecessors in Washington, telling reporters that, managed properly by the U.S., the two nations’ economic roles should have been reversed.

“Really, if you look at it, since the start of the World Trade Organization, and they have really done a number on this country. And I don’t blame China,” the president said during remarks to reporters at the top of a Cabinet meeting. “I blame the people running our country, I blame presidents. I blame representatives. I blame negotiators. We should have been able to do what they did. We didn’t do it. They did. And it’s the most lopsided set of trade rules, regulations that anybody’s ever seen.”


As he has in the past, Trump reiterated his respect for his Chinese counterpart, President Xi Jinping, with whom he said he is “very good friends.” Trump predicted that the U.S. would be able to maintain its “good relationship” with China even as he has proposed significant steps to reset the economic relationship between the two nations.

Earlier on Monday, Trump decried the taxes the Chinese government imposes on the import of U.S. cars, insisting that his announced tariffs on Chinese goods were the antidote to “stupid trade” practices allowed for years by his predecessors.

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“When a car is sent to the United States from China, there is a Tariff to be paid of 2 1/2%. When a car is sent to China from the United States, there is a Tariff to be paid of 25%,” Trump wrote on Twitter just after 6 a.m. Monday. “Does that sound like free or fair trade. No, it sounds like STUPID TRADE — going on for years!”

The president's message during his remarks to reporters differed significantly from that of White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, who painted China as a bad economic actor in a Monday appearance on CNBC. Kudlow urged the panel of CNBC hosts "please don't blame Trump. Blame China," and praised Trump for standing up to Beijing. "Somebody's got to do it. Somebody's got to say to China, 'You are no longer a third-world country. You are a first world country and you've got to act like one,'" Kudlow said. "The whole world knows that China cannot continue to behave illegally and unfairly as they have."

Long a part of his political platform, trade has become an especially key point of fixation for the president in recent weeks as he has begun to ramp up his pledge to level the playing field of international trade. Although he has imposed some across-the-board tariffs, the bulk of Trump’s announced trade moves have targeted China, with which the U.S. runs a significant deficit.

Already, Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese imports and ordered his U.S. trade representative to study tariffs on an additional $100 billion worth of imports from China. Beijing, in response to the president’s $50 billion tariff announcement, retaliated with tariffs on $50 billion in U.S. imports targeting 106 products, including soybeans, cars and airplanes.

On Monday, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry blamed the United States for the current trade discord between the countries and said that “under the current circumstances, both sides even more cannot have talks on these issues,” according to Reuters.

The spokesman, Geng Shuang, spoke after Trump on Sunday expressed optimism that China would remove trade barriers.

Despite fears that the tit-for-tat on tariffs could launch a full-scale trade war between the U.S. and China, the Trump administration has insisted that its interest is in recalibrating America’s economic relationship with Beijing. Via Twitter, Trump has insisted he is unafraid of trade wars, calling them “easy to win,” and suggesting that the U.S. would have “nothing to lose” in such an economic climate with China because there is already such a trade deficit.

