Senior US officials accused China of backtracking on its pledges in talks to end the trade war between the world’s largest economies, raising the risk of a collapse in the negotiations between Washington and Beijing.
In a briefing on Monday, Robert Lighthizer, the US trade representative, and Steven Mnuchin, the US Treasury secretary, said the Trump administration was prepared to move ahead with higher tariffs on $200bn of Chinese imports as early as Friday morning, in response to the impasse in the talks.
“Over the course of the last week or so we have seen an erosion in commitments by China,” Mr Lighthizer said. “Really, I would use the word reneging on prior commitments.” Mr Mnuchin described a “big change in direction for the negotiations”.