On the Heels of the G7, Trump Optimistic About Chinese Trade Negotiations

The future of global economies are shaky, but President Trump is feeling optimistic about his trade war with China saying the Chinese have reached out to him hoping to resume trade talks.

"China called last night our top trade people and said 'let's get back to the table'. So we'll be getting back to the table," Trump told reporters Monday.  

Chinese officials have since refuted the account with a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson saying he has no knowledge of such talks. 

This comes after the president seemed to express regret over reinstating tariffs on Chinese goods Friday.

"Mr. President, any second thoughts on escalating the trade war with China?" asked reporters.

"Yeah, sure.  Why not?" replied Trump. 

Administration officials quickly corrected the record. 

"He doesn't have second thoughts about what he's done. If anything, he wanted to clarify that if he had second thoughts, it would be to raise the tariffs," said Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.  

On Friday, the Dow dropped 600 points and Asian markets took a tumble Monday morning: a reaction to tit for tat tariffs from the US and China. 

In a tweet last week, the president hereby ordering American companies to look for an alternative to China.  

....better off without them. The vast amounts of money made and stolen by China from the United States, year after year, for decades, will and must STOP. Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2019

"He would have the authority if he declared an emergency. He has not done that. What he is saying is ordering companies to start looking," Mnuchin told Fox News Sunday. 

His Democratic challengers say the president's tactics and tweets create global chaos. 

"You keep your promises and you keep your threat and what he does is make these big blustering threats like kicking all of our companies out of China that people don't think he is going to follow through on," said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, (D-MN) and presidential candidate in an interview with Face the Nation. 

But trade wasn't the only thing on the minds of world leaders, the summit was met with a surprise visit from Iranian official, Mohammad Zarif.  Zarif was a guest of French President Emmanuel Macron.

Macron is taking up the mantle of piecing together the now-shattered Iranian nuclear agreement. 

Other world leaders, including President Trump, were not in that meeting but Trump told reporters Monday he signed off on the discussions. 

"He (Macron) asked me. I said if you want to do that, that's okay. I don't consider that disrespectful at all," said Trump.  

When it comes to trade, the Trump administration says it will go forward with the tariffs on $300 billion of goods on September 1 but will continue teleconference talks with the Chinese throughout the week and plan a visit from Chinese officials in September.