Trump not interested in China trade talks, ends Hong Kong preferential status

US President Donald Trump has shut the door on “Phase 2” trade negotiations with China, saying he does not want to talk to Beijing about trade because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“I’m not interested right now in talking to China,” Trump replied when asked in an interview with CBS News whether Phase 2 trade talks were dead.

“We made a great trade deal,” Trump said, of the Phase 1 agreement signed in January. “But as soon as the deal was done, the ink wasn’t even dry, and they hit us with the plague,” he said, referring to the novel coronavirus, which first emerged from the Chinese city of Wuhan.

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In another discursive news conference dominated by attacks on his domestic rivals, Trump on Tuesday declared himself to be the toughest president ever on China, which has emerged as a top nemesis in November elections.

He also said he was ending trade preferences for Hong Kong and signed into law an act that authorises sanctions on banks over China's clampdown in the international finance hub.

Trump announced that he had issued an executive order, which was not immediately released, on Hong Kong as he predicted decline for the restless city, on which Beijing recently imposed a tough new security law.

"Hong Kong will now be treated the same as mainland China -- no special privileges, no special economic treatment and no export of sensitive technologies," Trump said in the White House Rose Garden.

Trump also said he had signed into law the Hong Kong Autonomy Act, which passed quickly in Congress earlier this month as Beijing pushed ahead with the security law.

The new US law authorises sanctions against Chinese officials and Hong Kong police seen as infringing on the city's autonomy -- and, crucially, any banks that make significant transactions with them.

For months, Trump has blamed China for sending the coronavirus to the United States, saying that China must be “held accountable” for failing to contain the disease. The pandemic has taken a stiff toll on the US economy, endangering Trump’s hopes for re-election in November.

China pledged to increase purchases of US farm and manufactured goods, energy and services by $200 billion (159 billion pounds) over two years as part of the Phase 1 trade deal, but Trump has said the pandemic changed his views on the agreement.He said he has no plans to talk with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Trump has stepped up pressure on China on multiple fronts, especially on the coronavirus pandemic, news of which Beijing suppressed when the illness first emerged in Wuhan.

Critics both at home and abroad accuse Trump of seeking to divert from criticism of his own handling of COVID-19 in the United States, which has suffered by far the highest death toll of any country.

On Monday, Pompeo also stepped up the tone on the dispute-rife South China Sea, declaring most of Beijing's claims to be illegal.

The Trump administration also last week slapped sanctions on senior Chinese officials over the incarceration of more than one million Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims.

(with inputs from agencies)