US ‘not ready’ to make trade deal with China

President Donald Trump said yesterday he was not ready to finalize a trade deal with Beijing and signaled he might cancel talks set for September, raising the stakes in the intensifying US-China trade war.

"We'll see whether or not we keep our meeting in September," Trump told reporters at the White House before heading out on vacation at his New Jersey golf resort.

Relations have soured further in the past week after Trump announced a new round of punitive tariffs on Chinese goods, despite a truce agreed with President Xi Jinping, and Beijing responded by halting all purchases of US agricultural goods.