Trump ups the ante on anti-trade warnings against China

US President Donald Trump lashed out at China over its recent protectionist trade policies, threatening additional targeted trade restrictions if China goes ahead with imposing fresh rare earth mineral export controls and additional port fees for foreign container ships in Chinese ports.

Donald Trump opened his comments on Tuesday, appearing to be hopeful on a trade reproach between the US and China. However, within an hour, Trump had pivoted into fresh threats of targeted trade restrictions targeted at goods that have the appearance of being in demand by Chinese markets.

Key highlights

China purposefully not buying our soybeans, and causing difficulty for our soybean farmers, is an economically hostile act.
We are considering terminating business with China having to do with cooking oil, and other elements of trade, as retribution.
We can easily produce cooking oil ourselves, we don't need to purchase it from China.

We have a great relationship with Xi, sometimes it gets testy.
I think relationship with China will be fine.
I'm unhappy with Spain.
I was thinking about giving Spain trade punishment.
I probably still have good relationship with Putin.
Putin just doesn't want to end the war.
Russian economy is going to collapse.
This government shutdown shouldn't have happened.
We're being able to do things we weren't able to do due to shutdown.
We're going to have a list on Friday on closing Democrat programs.