President Donald Trump said Friday he was not ready to strike a trade deal with China and indicated the next round of talks might not take place as scheduled in early September — raising new doubts about the future of the negotiations and stoking uncertainty on Wall Street.
"We're not ready to make a deal, but we'll see what happens," he said.
“We'll see whether or not we keep our meeting in September."The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 250 points, or around one percent, following Trump's comments.
Speaking to reporters outside of the White House, Trump also said the administration would not grant licenses for U.S. companies to resume certain types of transactions with blacklisted Chinese telecommunication giant Huawei.
Trump has directly connected the administration's treatment of the company to the broader trade talks. Industry sources told POLITICO that the U.S. easing up on Huawei would likely only happen if China agreed to resume purchases of U.S. agricultural goods.
“We’re not doing business with Huawei,” Trump said. “That doesn’t mean we won’t agree to something if and when we make a trade deal, but we’re not going to be doing business with Huawei.”
Trump's comments injected new uncertainty into when U.S. and Chinese negotiators would next meet for face-to-face talks. On Wednesday, Larry Kudlow, the president's top economic adviser, said on CNBC that he expected the next round of talks to take place in September as scheduled.
Trump raised the stakes in his trade battle with China last week when he said he would slap a 10 percent tariff on $300 billion in Chinese imports on Sept.
1.Adam Behsudi contributed to this report.
Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine