President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping
(Image credit: AFP Contributor/Getty Images)

Don't tell President Trump he got rolled by China. On Fox News Sunday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Trump has put his $150 billion in proposed tariffs "on hold" while the U.S. and China implement a new "framework" in which China lowers tariffs on unspecified U.S. goods, buys more U.S. energy and food, and increase cooperation in safeguarding U.S. technology. Trump began his morning tweets with a defense of the preliminary deal:

See more

"On China, barriers and tariffs to come down for first time," he added. Analysts, and many of his own allies, did not agree with Trump's rosy assessment. "Trump administration gets rolled by the Chinese," tweeted Wall Street Journal trade reporter Bob Davis. Fox Business host Lou Dobbs tweeted: "Chinese say 'No Deal' — U.S. must export like a superpower not an agrarian developing nation half our size!" Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) summed up the objections in one tweet:

See more

China got Trump's team to drop the threatened tariffs and a specific $200 billion commitment for increased imports, and in return it pledged to buy more U.S. energy and food that it was almost certainly going to import anyway to feed its growing middle class. So "China appears to have the upper hand, but this is just the beginning," says Heather Long at The Washington Post. "There's hope on both sides of the aisle (and in many parts of America) that Trump will hold out for more."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.