Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he would impose tariffs on China again if he is elected in November and they could exceed 60 per cent.
“We have to do it,” the former US president said in an interview broadcast on Sunday with the Fox News programme Sunday Morning Futures. “I mean, look, the stock market almost crashed when it was announced that I won the Iowa primary (sic) in a record. And then when I won New Hampshire, the stock market went down like crazy,” he said.
Trump imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese goods in 2018 and 2019 amid a bitter trade war between the world’s two largest economies.
The Biden administration retained the tariffs and added new restrictions prohibiting the export of advanced semiconductors and the equipment to make them, citing security concerns.
The US trade representative is conducting a review of the tariffs.
Trump dismissed the notion that he would start another trade war with China.
“It’s not a trade war. I did great with China with everything,” Trump said in the interview, taped last week.
“I want China to do great, I do. And I like President Xi a lot. He was a very good friend of mine during my term,” he said.
Meanwhile, Trump shared a strange post on social media asking his followers if they think he resembles Elvis Presley.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, Trump shared a photo of half of his face spliced with the late singer’s face.
He wrote: “For so many years, people have been saying that Elvis and I look alike. Now this pic has been going all over the place. What do you think?”
It is unclear what inspired the post, but the former president has often likened himself to prominent historical figures including Nelson Mandela, Abraham Lincoln and even Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Mona Lisa painting
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Many took to social media to mock Trump for the random comparison.
One X account called Republicans against Trump simply posted a definition of narcissistic personality disorder in response.
“Donald Trump clearly has dementia,” he wrote.
Palmadessa listed a series of blunders Trump has made on the campaign trail, including speaking about former president Barack Obama as if he is still in office and mixing up his Republican rival Nikki Haley with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“He just compared himself to Elvis because he believes they look alike. He needs to seek help,” Palmadessa said.
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Ben Meiselas, the co-founder of anti-Trump political action committee MediasTouch, said Trump’s recent behaviour, including the Elvis post, “has people finally seeing just how delusional, cognitively impaired, and utterly weird Trump’s campaign is”.
Some responders on Trump’s platform, Truth Social, validated his suspicion that he does resemble Elvis – although some mocked him by editing photos to compare his face to Adolf Hitler and an oompa loompa character from the film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.
Biden said on Saturday that this has been “the weirdest campaign I’ve ever been engaged in”.
He took a swipe at Trump, saying his behaviour is “even worse” than when he last ran in 2020.
Trump’s Republican presidential nominee rival, Nikki Haley, has also been ramping up her attacks on Trump’s cognitive abilities in recent weeks.
Additional reporting by Business Insider