Trump Says He's Cut 200 Trade Deals, Talked to Xi and Expects Trade Wars to End in Weeks

U.S. President Donald Trump claimed in remarks published Friday that he's spoken with Chinese President Xi, that Washington and Beijing are holding trade talks and that he expects the wrap up the current trade instability within four weeks.

Trump also said in a Time magazine interview that he's concluded 200 trade deals that he'll soon announce, that tariffs on foreign goods won't go down to zero and that he'd consider long-term 20%-50% import duties a "total victory."

"What I'm doing is I will, at a certain point in the not-too-distant future, I will set a fair price of tariffs for different countries," the president told Time during an interview conducted earlier this week.

Trump said Xi has called him, but didn't specify when or what they discussed.

"He's called, and I don't think that's a sign of weakness on his behalf," the president said.

Trump added that "we're meeting with China. We're doing fine with everybody" – claims that contradict comments by Beijing that no talks have taken place.

Nonetheless, Trump said he expects to wrap up all trade negotiations with various countries "over the next three to four weeks."

The president set off a trade war with multiple countries earlier this month when he announced large tariffs against nearly 200 countries, including 145% import duties on Chinese goods. China retaliated by slapping a 125% tariff on American goods.

Trump has since imposed a 90-day pause on many of the duties, but not those affecting China.

The administration has hinted that it's using the tariffs as a bargaining chip to negotiate better bilateral trade agreements with various countries.

Still, Trump told Time that such deals won't include 0% tariffs on foreign goods because that wouldn't incentivize companies to make goods in America.

"Zero would be easy, but [with] zero, you wouldn't have any companies coming in," he said. "They're coming in because they don't want to pay the tariffs. Remember this, there are no tariffs if they make their product here."

Rather, the president said he'd consider tariffs of 20% to 50% a year from now to represent a "total victory."

Trump said he will set import duties on individual countries based on such factors as whether they impose tariffs on U.S. goods, whether they charge value-added taxes and whether America provides military protection to a nation.

"I will set a price [in tariffs], and when I set the price, and I will set it fairly according to the statistics and according to everything else," he said.

With respect to China, the president said that if his current 145% import duty remains, "it's going to be very rare that you see business" between the United States and the Asian nation.

But he added that "there's a [tariff] number at which they will feel comfortable."

Published reports Friday indicated that China has quietly rolled back duties on some U.S.-made semiconductors and pharmaceuticals, while also considering doing the same with medical gear and chemicals.

But publicly, the Chinese embassy in Washington posted on social media that "China and the U.S. are NOT having any consultation or negotiation on #tariffs. The U.S. should stop creating confusion."

In other comments to Time, the president said:

-- He wouldn't oppose a plan some Republican have floated about increasing income taxes on American millionaires even though the GOP has traditionally gone against higher taxes for the rich. "I'd be raising [taxes] on the wealthy to take care of middle class. And that's—I love, that."

-- He'll veto measures that cut spending on the popular U.S. social-welfare programs Social Security, Medicare and Medicare, other than steps aimed at reducing "waste, fraud and abuse."