WASHINGTON (Kyodo) -- U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday threatened to impose an additional 100 percent tariff on imports from China and suggested he could cancel an upcoming meeting with its top leader Xi Jinping after Beijing this week announced new export controls on rare earths.
Trump said on social media that the new tariff will be implemented starting Nov. 1 or sooner, depending on any further actions taken by China. He said the United States will also impose export controls on all critical software beginning on the same date.
"It is impossible to believe that China would have taken such an action, but they have, and the rest is History," he wrote.
"This was a real surprise," Trump said earlier in a separate social media post, referring to China's decision to tighten export restrictions on critical minerals used in high-tech manufacturing. He said that "now there seems to be no reason" to meet with the Chinese president in South Korea later this month.
Calling China's action "sinister and hostile" toward not only the United States but also the rest of the world, Trump said he will be forced to retaliate financially against the new export controls.
"I never thought it would come to this but perhaps, as with all things, the time has come," he said. "One of the Policies that we are calculating at this moment is a massive increase of Tariffs on Chinese products coming into the United States of America."
Following a phone call with Xi in September, Trump said the two agreed to meet in person when both travel to South Korea for an Asia-Pacific economic summit set to begin at the end of this month.
Trump has yet to either travel to Asia or meet face-to-face with Xi since returning to the White House in January for a nonconsecutive second term. The two last held in-person talks in 2019 on the margins of a Group of 20 summit in Osaka.
Until Friday's social media posts, Trump had been softening his rhetoric on China in tandem with easing tensions on trade and expressing hope to make progress on key issues during the forthcoming talks.
Last week, Trump said China's halting of its American soybean purchases would top the agenda of their meeting.
Since the United States and China declared a truce in their trade war in May, they have slashed triple-digit retaliatory tariff rates on each other's goods.
Senior U.S. and Chinese officials have been in regular contact in recent months, with foreign policy experts viewing the Trump-Xi meeting as part of efforts by Washington and Beijing to lay the groundwork for the world's two largest economies to engage more deeply with each other in 2026.
During the phone conversation with Xi, Trump also said he had agreed to visit China early next year, and that the Chinese president would reciprocate with a U.S. visit at "an appropriate time."
But China on Thursday announced a set of new export controls, adding holmium and four other types of rare earths to the list on top of the seven it announced in April.
The restrictions, effective Nov. 8, also require export licenses for technologies used in rare-earth mining, smelting, magnetic material manufacturing and recycling.
China said the new steps are needed to prevent other countries from endangering its "national security and interests."
China dominates the global supply of rare earths and other minerals vital for all kinds of modern technologies, from electric vehicles to weapons systems.