AP Photo/Evan Vucci
- President Donald Trump has admitted he's responsible for delaying a trade deal with China.
- "It is me right now that is holding up the deal," he told reporters on Tuesday. "And we're going to either do a great deal with China or we're not going to do a deal."
- The president blamed China's backtracking on previous commitments for the failure to reach an agreement.
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President Donald Trump has admitted he's responsible for delaying a trade deal with China.
"China wants to make a deal very badly," Trump told reporters outside the White House on Tuesday, according to CNBC. "It is me right now that is holding up the deal. And we're going to either do a great deal with China or we're not going to do a deal."
The president blamed China's backtracking on initial commitments for the failure to reach an agreement. He previously said the Asian nation "broke the deal" in early May.
The comments came a day after he threatened to immediately extend tariffs to virtually all Chinese goods if Chinese President Xi Jinping doesn't meet with him at the G-20 summit in Japan later this month. China responded that if the US insists on escalating the trade war, it will "fight to the end."
Traders weren't thrilled with the president's latest show of stubbornness.
"Equities are responding badly to Trump's admission that he's holding back on the US-China trade talks," said Konstantinos Anthis, head of research at ADSS. "Investors seem to take this statement as a sign that Trump will accept nothing other than the deal he wants, putting any progress until the G-20 meeting in doubt."
"The prospect of an unending trade dispute between the world's two largest economies is a nightmare scenario," he added.
Here's the market roundup as of 9.02 a.m. (5.02 a.m. ET):
- Asian indexes closed lower with the Shanghai Composite down 0.6%, the SZSE Component down 0.9%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng down 1.9%.
- European equities slid in morning trading with Germany's DAX, Britain's FTSE 100, and the Euro Stoxx 50 all falling 0.3%.
- US stocks are poised for a negative open. Futures underlying the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 were down 0.2%, while Nasdaq futures were down 0.3%.
- Oil fell sharply with West Texas Intermediate crude down 1.8% at $52.30, and Brent crude down 1.6% at $61.30.