President Trump's awkwardly-phrased "BIG leap forward" with China on trade got a little smaller on Monday, as his economic team said that contrary to a Trump tweet on Sunday night, China did not agree to "reduce and remove tariffs on cars coming into China from the U.S." China raised tariffs on U.S. auto imports to 40 percent, from 15 percent, in retaliation for Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to a temporary truce on Saturday night. Getting auto tariffs down to zero is aspirational, Trump's advisers said.
"We don't yet have a specific agreement on that, but I will just tell you ... we expect those tariffs to go to zero," Larry Kudlow, Trump's top economic adviser, told reporters Monday. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said "there is an immediate focus on reducing auto tariffs," but "there's a lot of work to be done over the next 90 days." Trump's top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, said auto tariffs "certainly came up in discussions" with China, but "that's just one of the many tariffs that have to be reduced."
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