Story highlights President Trump[ tells top advisers in meeting that China is "laughing" at the US

"I want tariffs," the President tells advisers

Washington (CNN) President Donald Trump and his administration have gradually taken a harder line against China on trade issues, inching closer to matching Trump's tough talk during the campaign.

But the pace has been all too slow for a president intent on retaliating against alleged Chinese foreign trade abuses and rebalancing the US-China trading relationship.

"I want tariffs," Trump told a coterie of top advisers in the Oval Office during retired Gen. John Kelly's first week as chief of staff, a source with direct knowledge of the meeting told CNN.

Axios first reported details of the tense Oval Office meeting.

Trump's demand that his advisers give him options that would empower him to level tariffs against China came as his advisers presented him with a memorandum that would empower the US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to launch a broad investigation into Chinese trade abuses concerning intellectual property rights.

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