Beijing retaliated after Trump has established steep prices on Mexico, Canada and China: live updates

China has never made this kind of openings and, according to Mr. Trump, has not taken big movements to stop the flow of fentanyl in the United States. Thus, on February 4, Trump advanced with an imposing a 10% rate on all Chinese imports. Last week, the president said that on March 4, he would add an additional 10% in addition to all existing Chinese prices.

Trump quickly moves to transform the American-Chinese commercial relationship. The Chinese move much more carefully and deliberately when they try to assess Mr. Trump and determine what he really wants from China. Some of Mr. Trump’s advisers, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have made calls with their Chinese counterparts. But a call between Mr. Trump and Xi Jinping, the chief of China, failed to materialize.

The situation underlines the dilemma of foreign leaders in the treatment of such an unpredictable and unconventional president as Mr. Trump, who makes substantial changes under commercial terms with little notice or preparation.

The Chinese do not want to initiate a conversation because they do not want to be considered to be pleading and are wary of offering concessions before understanding the parameters of the debate, according to discussions with discussions. Instead, Chinese officials, academics and other relatives of the government organized discreet conversations to try to determine Mr. Trump’s motivations, while floating various aspects of a potential trade agreement between countries to assess the reaction of the Americans.

“With my experience with the Chinese, they are suspect in the first cycles of negotiations that there are hidden traps or other reasons to be cautious,” said Michael Pillsbury, an expert in China who advises the Trump administration on the treatment of the country.

The Chinese part has transmitted that they would like to work with the United States on mutually beneficial measures. But they find it hard to identify people in the United States which they consider to be reliable communication channels, according to a person close to the Chinese government.

They also try to assess the importance of certain recent steps in the administration, such as a memorandum which proposed strict limits on investment between countries. Trump publicly contradicted the memories a few days after signing it, saying that he had praised Chinese investments.

“I think the Chinese are in waiting and listening mode,” said Myron Brilliant, who spent years working with companies to understand the Chinese and recently returned from a trip to China. “They take all kinds of contributions, they start their consultations, they do not yet support the panic button.”

“There is an will, an appetite to conclude an agreement with the Trump administration, but China does not want prerequisites on this subject, and seeks more clarity on the parameters of an agreement,” said Brilliant, main advisor to the DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group, a consulting company.

At the end of February, a delegation including Cui Tiankai, the former Chinese ambassador to the United States, met representatives of Think Tanks in Washington, according to more than half a dozen people familiar with the discussions.

During meetings and dinners, the Chinese delegation has been the subject of hope that countries could reach accommodation and floating ideas for a potential trade agreement, including significant purchases of American agricultural products and Chinese investments in the United States, several people said.

They called for treating China as an equal partner and criticized the past measures taken by Biden administration to “contain” China, such as export controls. The delegation has also threatened that, if other American rates come into force, China could withdraw a set of application of the law it had gathered to combat fentanyl trade, which included information that could be used to pursue Chinese companies, said one of the people. They recognized that the Chinese economy struggled and that more prices could hurt it.

Current and former advisers and other familiar people with the thought of Mr. Trump say that he has expressed his interest in concluding a broad agreement with Mr. XI, which could involve Chinese purchases and investments, as well as cooperation on issues such as nuclear security.

But Trump also believes that China has denied the agreement he signed with him in 2020 does not buy enough products. Trump also has no aversion to increase the pressure on Beijing by imposing prices, considering them as a lever source in negotiations.

Trump said he had an excellent relationship with Mr. Xi and that the Chinese invest in the United States. When asked in February if he would conclude a trade agreement with China, Trump replied: “It is possible.”

“We have concluded an excellent trade agreement with China,” he said. “The problem is that Biden did not push them to join them.”

In an interview on Fox News by Sunday Morning Futures, Howard Lunick, the trade secretary, said that instead of stopping the manufacture of fentanyl, the Chinese offered “maximum subsidy” to people making the ingredients.

“The Chinese must stop this murder of Americans,” he said.

The prices that Trump has threatened to impose on China since his entry into office is already roughly comparable to those he imposed in his first administration, said Scott Kennedy, principal advisor to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington reflection group. In 2018, Trump put prices ranging from 7.5 to 25% to more than $ 350 billion in Chinese imports, samples that remain in force.

“It is still early,” said Kennedy. “This should be considered the soil of what is imposed, not the ceiling.”

Beijing has so far been cautious in the response, responding to Mr. Trump’s first volley of prices with a more limited number. But he reported that he was willing to go further, perhaps using his domination in the world supply chain to demand pain.

The Chinese delegation which included Mr. Cui had come to New York as the first Chinese diplomat, Wang Yi, visited the United Nations. While Mr. Wang did not continue to Washington, according to a source, the Chinese embassy helped organize meetings for Mr. Cui in the national capital.

High leaders of the Communist Party, notably Fang Xinghai, the former deputy chief of the Chinese market regulator, and the economist Zhu Min, also went to Washington and met certain members of the community and the government of Think Tank.

The Chinese seem to explore the best contact points for their government. In the previous Trump administration, the president of the president, Jared Kushner, was an important intermediary, as is the figures in the private sector. Recently, the Chinese investigated the role that Elon Musk – which has many commercial interests in China by Tesla – will play in the Trump administration.

In private, the Chinese have indicated a desire to start negotiating an agreement but want to know that they have direct access to Mr. Trump.

“It seems that Beijing blames what happened on the bad communication channels,” said Yun Sun, director of the Chinese program at the Stimson Center, a research group in Washington.

Chinese academics and those responsible for reflection groups began to float various ideas for a trade agreement. A proposal is to make major investments in the United States in areas such as electric vehicles, batteries and solar panels, which could create around 500,000 American jobs, according to a person with direct knowledge of the proposal. In an unusual decision, Chinese companies would be willing to concede to the technology of American partners and to hold minority participations in companies to mitigate national security problems, the person said.

Another provisional offer is the purchase of goods and services in the United States in agriculture, aerospace, energy and perhaps even in technology. The Chinese also suggested buying more US Treasury bills and has perfected a concern that Trump recently expressed a decision of a handful of nations, including China and Russia to create a new reserve currency, threatening the US dollar. The Chinese proposed that Beijing could withdraw from this effort.

Chinese diplomats and academics have indicated that Beijing could also help the United States conclude an agreement between Russia and Ukraine and help the reconstruction of Ukraine.

In return, the Chinese suggested that the United States undertake to stabilize the economic relationship. This could mean abstaining from other prices and technological controls and to allow more Chinese investment in the United States.

Given the national security problems in the United States concerning closer links with China, it is not clear that the two parties could find an agreement on one of these questions. And some analysts say that Mr. Trump’s movements to make upward prices make the reconciliation of the Chinese less likely, because Mr. Xi will not want to give in to Mr. Trump.

“We look at the opportunities pass and the more you wait, the more hostility in the room and less time is for both sides to reach an agreement,” said Sun.

Minho Kim Contributed reports.