Cnn
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The burst of punitive measures taken against China by the Trump administration in recent days has been invited to believe among US officials that China has not lived up to the commitments it has made in commercial talks earlier this month, three administration officials told CNN.
This week, the administration has taken measures to revoke visas for Chinese students and suspend the sale of certain critical technologies to Chinese companies.
The officials said they were frustrated The fact that China has failed to continue the commitments intended to defuse the trade conflict between the two countries because they are looking for a global agreement in mid-August.
The dispute highlights the very busy relationship between the two largest economies in the world. Even if the two parties emerged from talks in Switzerland who agreed to reduce the scouring prices introduced by President Donald Trump, the Gulf seems to be expanding on the supply chains which, according to each nation, are essential to national security.
After the talks in Geneva this month – the first substantial trade meeting since Trump imposed the prices – the US officials expected China to facilitate the export restrictions of the minerals of rare land, which are a essential part of everything Iphones and electric vehicles with large ticket weapons such as F-35 fighter planes and missile systems.
But the restrictions have not been lifted, causing intense dissatisfaction in the Trump administration and causing the recent series of costs imposed on China, the three administration officials said.
Decisions in Washington to limit sales of critical technologies to China and limit the number of Chinese students who study in the United States reveal to what extent the trade war is central to the overall administration foreign policy.
This is a “unified administration strategy,” said a senior administration official by describing the connective tissue.
The measures taken during last week will have a significant impact on companies and students in Chinese technology.
Financial Times reported on Wednesday that Trump had actually cut some American companies Software sale Used to design semiconductors in China. A spokesperson for Siemens later told CNN that the US government had informed the industry of new export controls on flea design software to military and Chinese users around the world on Friday.
A few days later, the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said that the Trump administration “will aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students”, including those who have links with the Chinese Communist Party or study in critical fields.
“On the first day, the president signed an executive decree ordering the Secretary of State to improve federal screening and the verification of foreigners coming to the United States, including visa holders. The secretary made this decision in the continuous effort of the administration to protect our homeland against espionage and other hostile actions,” said the white house press, Karoline Leavitt.
The Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, whom Trump has exploited to direct the talks and direct the point on the bilateral relationship, highlighted the importance of the process that Geneva talks have set up for negotiations to occur in the coming months.
But he underlined the value of the “mechanism” established between the American and Chinese parties to prevent future climbing which would derail the future talks or any possible result.
Bessent, who led the Geneva talks to the US trade representative Jamieson Greer, has maintained an accent on a functional relationship and said that a second meeting in person between the two parties is probably in the future. But Bessent has also calibrated its public comments to clearly indicate that the United States does not intend to slow down or stop a strategic effort to decline China on the supply chains considered essential to American national security.
“I would say they are a little blocked,” said Bessent about China’s discussions on Fox News on Thursday. “I think we will have more conferences with them in the coming weeks. And I believe that we can, at one point, have an appeal between the president and the president of the XI (Jinping). ”
“I think that, given the magnitude of the talks, given the complexity, this will force the two leaders to weigh with each other,” said Bessent.
An increasing concern in the administration in the forecast of talks on China movements to cut access to minerals in rare earths has triggered a large -scale effort behind the scenes to find potential bypass, said officials.
This effort, which included managers of several agencies and West Wing, was not interrupted after the trade talks and remains a goal. But there was an opinion that immediate pressure would deteriorate following the agreement reflected in the joint declaration. When this did not happen, the United States has started to think about means of imposing costs on China.
US officials said they were not concerned about a two derailment of the future of American-Chinese trade negotiations. Instead, civil servants seek to clearly indicate that not effectively engaging in current trade negotiations has consequences for the country.
“It is clearly an escalation. But if you look at what Trump does when he thinks he is close to concluding an agreement, and it is not yet there, he tries to raise rhetoric. They think that rhetoric and high action will make a faster agreement,” said a person close to the White House.
There were signs that Beijing was initially taken over by the announcement of the visa. For a large part of Thursday, the Chinese media controlled by the state remained largely silent on the news that will have a significant impact on the fate of hundreds of thousands of Chinese students.
Then, the spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry came out by calling the “politically motivated and discriminatory” move.
Any way to the establishment of the relationship at all levels remains uncertain.
“The Geneva Agreement was a first major step towards the conclusion of a final and complete trade agreement with China,” said White House spokesman Kush Desai, in a statement. “The discussions continue and the administration is monitored compliance with the agreement.”
It is not clear when the next series of commercial talks between the United States and China will take place. And despite saying for weeks, he was talking soon with President Xi Jinping, Trump and the Chinese chief have not yet spoken in the middle of the trade conflict.